The field of biotechnology has evolved over the past four decades, developing medicines which are curing diseases. But this journey of success has been tough and arduous, built upon the shoulders of major failures. Good Genes Gone Bad highlights seven such colossal failures in drug development-all of which culminated in the development of novel drugs-weaving together various analogies through the stories and thus allowing the reader to understand complex biological phenomena. These stories include treatment of medical conditions such as genetic clotting disorder (haemophilia), childhood-diarrhoea (rotavirus vaccine), preventing HIV infection, activation of the immune systems to treat cancer, gene therapy for treatment of diseases caused by gene-defects/mutations, cell therapy for treatment of leukaemias, and finally the success of Biocon's approval of the first biologic drug for breast cancer. Written by the former R&D head of Biocon, India's largest pharmaceutical company, Good Genes Gone Bad is a fascinating look at the complex world of medicine and drug development, providing the readers with a sense of magnitude of challenges and the extent of difficulty that it takes to make novel medicines.

The science of extinction is a lively and moveable feast of scientific speculation and research. Scientist/author David Raup takes the subject of nature's disappearing act to task, covering everything from the Ice Age Blitzkreig to the fate of the marshes on Martha's Vineyard, the extinction of flying reptiles to mankind's impact on tropical reefs. Graphs.

Have you ever heard of a person who left you wondering, "How could someone be so twisted? So evil?" Prompted by clues in her sister’s diary after her mysterious death, author Barbara Oakley takes the reader inside the head of the kinds of malevolent people you know, perhaps all too well, but could never understand. Starting with psychology as a frame of reference, Oakley uses cutting-edge images of the working brain to provide startling support for the idea that "evil" people act the way they do mainly as the result of a dysfunction. In fact, some deceitful, manipulative, and even sadistic behavior appears to be programmed genetically—suggesting that some people really are born to be bad. Oakley links the latest findings of molecular research to a wide array of seemingly unrelated historical and current phenomena, from the harems of the Ottomans and the chummy jokes of "Uncle Joe" Stalin, to the remarkable memory of investor Warren Buffet. Throughout, she never loses sight of the personal cost of evil genes as she unravels the mystery surrounding her sister’s enigmatic life—and death. Evil Genes is a tour-de-force of popular science writing that brilliantly melds scientific research with intriguing family history and puts both a human and scientific face to evil.

The #1 NEW YORK TIMES Bestseller The basis for the PBS Ken Burns Documentary The Gene: An Intimate History Now includes an excerpt from Siddhartha Mukherjee’s new book Song of the Cell! From the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Emperor of All Maladies—a fascinating history of the gene and “a magisterial account of how human minds have laboriously, ingeniously picked apart what makes us tick” (Elle). “Sid Mukherjee has the uncanny ability to bring together science, history, and the future in a way that is understandable and riveting, guiding us through both time and the mystery of life itself.” —Ken Burns “Dr. Siddhartha Mukherjee dazzled readers with his Pulitzer Prize-winning The Emperor of All Maladies in 2010. That achievement was evidently just a warm-up for his virtuoso performance in The Gene: An Intimate History, in which he braids science, history, and memoir into an epic with all the range and biblical thunder of Paradise Lost” (The New York Times). In this biography Mukherjee brings to life the quest to understand human heredity and its surprising influence on our lives, personalities, identities, fates, and choices. “Mukherjee expresses abstract intellectual ideas through emotional stories…[and] swaddles his medical rigor with rhapsodic tenderness, surprising vulnerability, and occasional flashes of pure poetry” (The Washington Post). Throughout, the story of Mukherjee’s own family—with its tragic and bewildering history of mental illness—reminds us of the questions that hang over our ability to translate the science of genetics from the laboratory to the real world. In riveting and dramatic prose, he describes the centuries of research and experimentation—from Aristotle and Pythagoras to Mendel and Darwin, from Boveri and Morgan to Crick, Watson and Franklin, all the way through the revolutionary twenty-first century innovators who mapped the human genome. “A fascinating and often sobering history of how humans came to understand the roles of genes in making us who we are—and what our manipulation of those genes might mean for our future” (Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel), The Gene is the revelatory and magisterial history of a scientific idea coming to life, the most crucial science of our time, intimately explained by a master. “The Gene is a book we all should read” (USA TODAY).

How tiny variations in our personal DNA can determine how we look, how we behave, how we get sick, and how we get well. News stories report almost daily on the remarkable progress scientists are making in unraveling the genetic basis of disease and behavior. Meanwhile, new technologies are rapidly reducing the cost of reading someone's personal DNA (all six billion letters of it). Within the next ten years, hospitals may present parents with their newborn's complete DNA code along with her footprints and APGAR score. In Genetic Twists of Fate, distinguished geneticists Stanley Fields and Mark Johnston help us make sense of the genetic revolution that is upon us. Fields and Johnston tell real life stories that hinge on the inheritance of one tiny change rather than another in an individual's DNA: a mother wrongly accused of poisoning her young son when the true killer was a genetic disorder; the screen siren who could no longer remember her lines because of Alzheimer's disease; and the president who was treated with rat poison to prevent another heart attack. In an engaging and accessible style, Fields and Johnston explain what our personal DNA code is, how a few differences in its long list of DNA letters makes each of us unique, and how that code influences our appearance, our behavior, and our risk for such common diseases as diabetes or cancer.

"A lucid, thought-provoking account of the case for 'nature' as a determinant of personality."—Peter D. Kramer, Author of Listening to Prozac and Should You Leave? Nowhere is the nature-nurture controversy being more arduously tested than in the labs of world-renowned molecular scientist Dean Hamer, whose cutting-edge research has indisputably linked specific genes to behavioral traits, such as anxiety, thrill-seeking, and homosexuality. The culmination of that research is this provocative book, Living with Our Genes. In it, Dr. Hamer reveals that much of our behavior—how much we eat and weigh, whether we drink or use drugs, how often we have sex—is heavily influenced by genes. His findings help explain why one brother becomes a Wall Street trader, while his sibling remains content as a librarian, or why some people like to bungee-jump, while others prefer Scrabble. Dr. Hamer also sheds light on some of the most compelling and vexing aspects of personality, such as shyness, aggression, depression, and intelligence. In the tradition of the bestselling book Listening to Prozac, Living with Our Genes is the first comprehensive investigation of the crucial link between our DNA and our behavior. "Compulsive reading, reminiscent of Jared Diamond, from a scientist who knows his stuff and communicates it well."—Kirkus Reviews "A pioneer in the field of molecular psychology, Hamer is exploring the role genes play in governing the very core of our individuality. Accessible . . . provocative."—Time "Absolutely terrific! I couldn't put it down."—Professor Robert Plomin, Social, Genetic & Developmental Psychiatry Research Center, Institute of Psychiatry

The advances in human genetics that have ocurred during the past 20 years have revolutionized our knowledge of the role played by inheritance in health and disase. It is clear that our DNA determines not only the emergence of catastrophic single-gene disorders, which affect millions of persons worldwide, but also interacts with environments to predispose individuals to cancer, allergy, hypertension, heart disease, diabetes, psychiatric disorders and even to some infectious diseases. Overall, the study of longevity and the demonstration of genes favouring a long lifespan suggest that such protective systems exist. In recent years, the study of genetic polymorphisms has made clear that some alleles have beneficial effects. These discoveries can substantially improve our understanding of the interactions between genetics and the environment, between pathogenetic mechanisms and new treatments.