Download or read book Genes Germs And Medicine The Life Of Joshua Lederberg written by Jan Sapp and published by World Scientific. This book was released on 2021-02-23 with total page 424 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Genes, Germs and Medicine explores the development of modern biomedical science in the United States through the life of one of the Twentieth Century's most influential scientists.Joshua Lederberg was a scientific renaissance man. He and his collaborators founded the field of bacterial genetics, and he was awarded the Nobel Prize at the age of 33 (the second youngest in history). He helped to lay the foundations for genetic engineering, made fundamental revisions to immunological and evolutionary theory, and developed medical genetics. He initiated the search for extraterrestrial microbial life, developed artificial intelligence, and was a visionary of the Digital Age. Lederberg coined some of the central terms of modern biology: plasmid, transduction, exobiology, euphenics and microbiome.A complex humanist who spoke out for social justice, Lederberg confronted racism, and denied a gene-centered view of humans. Pondering our social evolution outside of nature, he forewarned of the complex ethical issues arising from bioengineering. He sounded the alarm about coming pandemics at a time when few would listen, and warned of the peril of biowarfare and strove to prevent it. Lederberg was a man with a deep sense of social and intellectual responsibility, a trusted advisor to eight presidential administrations.
Download or read book A Hidden Legacy written by Thomas E. Schindler and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Esther Zimmer Lederberg's research revealed the unique features of bacterial sex. In the decade leading up to the discovery of the DNA double helix, she collaborated with her husband, Joshua Lederberg, to establish the new field of bacterial genetics. The impressive series of achievements by team Lederberg included: the discovery of [lambda] bacteriophage; the discovery of the first plasmid known as the F-factor; the demonstration that viruses carry bacterial genes between bacteria, and fundamental properties of bacterial sex. The Lederbergs' successful collaboration earned Joshua the 1958 Nobel Prize, which he shared with two of Esther's mentors, George Beadle and Edward Tatum. Esther Lederberg's contributions, however, were overlooked by the Nobel committee, an example of institutional discrimination known as The Matilda Effect. Esther Lederberg should have been recognized for inventing Replica Plating, an elegant technique that she originated by re-purposing her compact makeup pad as a kind of ink stamp for conveniently transferring bacterial colonies from one Petri dish to another. Instead, the credit for the invention -still in use today, 70 years later-is given to her famous husband, or, at best, to Dr. and Mrs. Lederberg"--
Download or read book Digitizing Diagnosis written by Andrew S. Lea and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2023-07-25 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This is the first book-length account of early efforts to computerize medical diagnosis. It explores how these efforts produced and interacted with certain professional tensions, disease constructions, personal identities, cultural ideals, economic interests, and material practices. The book offers a historical account that raises pressing questions, problems, and challenges that must be addressed as we work to harness artificial intelligence for the benefit of the medical profession and its patients"--
Download or read book The Future is Now written by Eric Cohen and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2002 with total page 390 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book looks at both the past and the future of the debate over whether there are moral limits to scientific progress and what life will look like in the genetic age.
Download or read book The Science of Human Perfection written by Nathaniel Comfort and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2012-09-25 with total page 371 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Almost daily we hear news stories, advertisements, and scientific reports that promise genetic medicine will make us live longer, enable doctors to identify and treat diseases before they start, and individualize our medical care. But surprisingly, a century ago eugenicists were making the same promises. The Science of Human Perfection traces the history of the promises of medical genetics and of the medical dimension of eugenics. The book also considers social and ethical issues that cast troublesome shadows over these fields./divDIV DIVKeeping his focus on America, science historian Nathaniel Comfort introduces the community of scientists, physicians, and public health workers who have contributed to the development of medical genetics from the nineteenth century to today. He argues that medical genetics is closely related to eugenics, and indeed the two cannot be fully understood separately. He also carefully examines how the desire to relieve suffering and to improve ourselves genetically, though noble, may be subverted. History makes clear that as patients and consumers we must take ownership of genetic medicine, using it intelligently, knowledgeably, and skeptically, lest pernicious interests trump our own./div
Download or read book Forgotten Clones written by Nathan Crowe and published by University of Pittsburgh Press. This book was released on 2021-12-07 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Long before scientists at the Roslin Institute in Scotland cloned Dolly the sheep in 1996, American embryologist and aspiring cancer researcher Robert Briggs successfully developed the technique of nuclear transplantation using frogs in 1952. Although the history of cloning is often associated with contemporary ethical controversies, Forgotten Clones revisits the influential work of scientists like Briggs, Thomas King, and Marie DiBerardino, before the possibility of human cloning and its ethical implications first registered as a concern in public consciousness, and when many thought the very idea of cloning was experimentally impossible. By focusing instead on new laboratory techniques and practices and their place in Anglo-American science and society in the mid-twentieth century, Nathan Crowe demonstrates how embryos constructed in the lab were only later reconstructed as ethical problems in the 1960s and 1970s with the emergence of what was then referred to as the Biological Revolution. His book illuminates the importance of the early history of cloning for the biosciences and their institutional, disciplinary, and intellectual contexts, as well as providing new insights into the changing cultural perceptions of the biological sciences after Second World War.
Download or read book Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists written by and published by . This book was released on 1966-10 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists is the premier public resource on scientific and technological developments that impact global security. Founded by Manhattan Project Scientists, the Bulletin's iconic "Doomsday Clock" stimulates solutions for a safer world.
Download or read book Good Germs Bad Germs written by Jessica Snyder Sachs and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2007-10-16 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Making Peace with Microbes Public sanitation and antibiotic drugs have brought about historic increases in the human life span; they have also unintentionally produced new health crises by disrupting the intimate, age-old balance between humans and the microorganisms that inhabit our bodies and our environment. As a result, antibiotic resistance now ranks among the gravest medical problems of modern times. Good Germs, Bad Germs addresses not only this issue but also what has become known as the "hygiene hypothesis"-- an argument that links the over-sanitation of modern life to now-epidemic increases in immune and other disorders. In telling the story of what went terribly wrong in our war on germs, Jessica Snyder Sachs explores our emerging understanding of the symbiotic relationship between the human body and its resident microbes--which outnumber its human cells by a factor of nine to one! The book also offers a hopeful look into a future in which antibiotics will be designed and used more wisely, and beyond that, to a day when we may replace antibacterial drugs and cleansers with bacterial ones--each custom-designed for maximum health benefits.
Download or read book Microbial Evolution and Co Adaptation written by Institute of Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2009-05-10 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dr. Joshua Lederberg - scientist, Nobel laureate, visionary thinker, and friend of the Forum on Microbial Threats - died on February 2, 2008. It was in his honor that the Institute of Medicine's Forum on Microbial Threats convened a public workshop on May 20-21, 2008, to examine Dr. Lederberg's scientific and policy contributions to the marketplace of ideas in the life sciences, medicine, and public policy. The resulting workshop summary, Microbial Evolution and Co-Adaptation, demonstrates the extent to which conceptual and technological developments have, within a few short years, advanced our collective understanding of the microbiome, microbial genetics, microbial communities, and microbe-host-environment interactions.
Download or read book Biomedical Computing written by Joseph A. November and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2012-06-01 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the Computer History Museum Prize of the Special Interest Group: Computers, Information, and Society Imagine biology and medicine today without computers. What would laboratory work be like if electronic databases and statistical software did not exist? Would disciplines like genomics even be feasible if we lacked the means to manage and manipulate huge volumes of digital data? How would patients fare in a world absent CT scans, programmable pacemakers, and computerized medical records? Today, computers are a critical component of almost all research in biology and medicine. Yet, just fifty years ago, the study of life was by far the least digitized field of science, its living subject matter thought too complex and dynamic to be meaningfully analyzed by logic-driven computers. In this long-overdue study, historian Joseph November explores the early attempts, in the 1950s and 1960s, to computerize biomedical research in the United States. Computers and biomedical research are now so intimately connected that it is difficult to imagine when such critical work was offline. Biomedical Computing transports readers back to such a time and investigates how computers first appeared in the research lab and doctor's office. November examines the conditions that made possible the computerization of biology—including strong technological, institutional, and political support from the National Institutes of Health—and shows not only how digital technology transformed the life sciences but also how the intersection of the two led to important developments in computer architecture and software design. The history of this phenomenon has been only vaguely understood. November's thoroughly researched and lively study makes clear for readers the motives behind computerizing the study of life and how that technology profoundly affects biomedical research today.
Download or read book Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering written by Kathy Wilson Peacock and published by Infobase Publishing. This book was released on 2010 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explains why biotechnology is a relevant and volatile issues. Begins with a history of biotechnology and its effect on agriculture, medicine, and the environment. Equal space is devoted to discussing the efforts of human-rights advocates, animal-rights advocates, and environmentalists to create definitive governmental regulations for this budding industry.
Download or read book Pioneers In Microbiology The Human Side Of Science written by Chung King-thom and published by World Scientific. This book was released on 2017-08-23 with total page 600 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pasteurization, penicillin, Koch's postulates, and gene coding. These discoveries and inventions are vital yet commonplace in modern life, but were radical when first introduced to the public and academia. In this book, the life and times of leading pioneers in microbiology are discussed in vivid detail, focusing on the background of each discovery and the process in which they were developed — sometimes by accident or sheer providence.
Download or read book Pleased to Meet Me written by Bill Sullivan and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2019-08-06 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why are you attracted to a certain "type?" Why are you a morning person? Why do you vote the way you do? From a witty new voice in popular science comes a clever, life-changing look at what makes you you. "I can't believe I just said that." "What possessed me to do that?" "What's wrong with me?" We're constantly seeking answers to these fundamental human questions, and now, science has the answers. The foods we enjoy, the people we love, the emotions we feel, and the beliefs we hold can all be traced back to our DNA, germs, and environment. This witty, colloquial book is popular science at its best, describing in everyday language how genetics, epigenetics, microbiology, and psychology work together to influence our personality and actions. Mixing cutting-edge research and relatable humor, Pleased to Meet Me is filled with fascinating insights that shine a light on who we really are--and how we might become our best selves.
Download or read book Microcosm written by Carl Zimmer and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2008-05-06 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Best Book of the YearSeed Magazine • Granta Magazine • The Plain-DealerIn this fascinating and utterly engaging book, Carl Zimmer traces E. coli's pivotal role in the history of biology, from the discovery of DNA to the latest advances in biotechnology. He reveals the many surprising and alarming parallels between E. coli's life and our own. And he describes how E. coli changes in real time, revealing billions of years of history encoded within its genome. E. coli is also the most engineered species on Earth, and as scientists retool this microbe to produce life-saving drugs and clean fuel, they are discovering just how far the definition of life can be stretched.
Download or read book The Microbial Challenge written by Robert I. Krasner and published by Jones & Bartlett Publishers. This book was released on 2014 with total page 580 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Microbes play a highly significant role in our daily lives as agents of infectious disease and are a major public health concern. The third edition of The Microbial Challenge: A Public Health Perspective addresses this topic and has been extensively revised and updated with the latest data in a fast-paced field. It focuses on human-microbe interactions and considers bacterial, viral, prion, protozoan, fungal and helminthic (worm) diseases. A chapter on beneficial aspects of microbes makes it clear that not all microbes are disease producers and that microbes are necessary for the sustenance of life on Earth. The response of the immune system, concepts of epidemiology, and measures of control from the individual to the international level to thwart potentially life-threatening epidemics are described. Sections on fungi and fungal diseases are new. The third edition includes new and contemporary information on vaccinations, antibiotic resistant microbes, practical disinfection information, virotherapy and emerging diseases. New boxes throughout the text feature items of human interest such as big and bizarre viruses, probiotics, rats, and synthetic biology. Ancillary instructor and student resources have been updated and expanded including the end of the chapter Self Evaluations. New and Key Features of the Third Edition: -New end-of-chapter questions included in every chapter. -A wealth of new feature boxes add a real-world perspective to the topics at hand. -New data on virotherapy and prions as infectious agents -New and updated statistics and data tables included throughout the text -Includes the latest on emerging and reemerging infectious diseases as major health problems
Download or read book Collecting Experiments written by Bruno J. Strasser and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2019-06-04 with total page 421 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Databases have revolutionized nearly every aspect of our lives. Information of all sorts is being collected on a massive scale, from Google to Facebook and well beyond. But as the amount of information in databases explodes, we are forced to reassess our ideas about what knowledge is, how it is produced, to whom it belongs, and who can be credited for producing it. Every scientist working today draws on databases to produce scientific knowledge. Databases have become more common than microscopes, voltmeters, and test tubes, and the increasing amount of data has led to major changes in research practices and profound reflections on the proper professional roles of data producers, collectors, curators, and analysts. Collecting Experiments traces the development and use of data collections, especially in the experimental life sciences, from the early twentieth century to the present. It shows that the current revolution is best understood as the coming together of two older ways of knowing—collecting and experimenting, the museum and the laboratory. Ultimately, Bruno J. Strasser argues that by serving as knowledge repositories, as well as indispensable tools for producing new knowledge, these databases function as digital museums for the twenty-first century.
Download or read book Genesis written by Jan Sapp and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2003-09-11 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Genesis: The Evolution of Biology presents a history of the past two centuries of biology, suitable for use in courses, but of interest more broadly to evolutionary biologists, geneticists, and biomedical scientists, as well as general readers interested in the history of science. The book covers the early evolutionary biologists-Lamarck, Cuvier, Darwin and Wallace through Mayr and the neodarwinian synthesis, in much the same way as other histories of evolution have done, bringing in also the social implications, the struggles with our religious understanding, and the interweaving of genetics into evolutionary theory. What is novel about Sapp's account is a real integration of the cytological tradition, from Schwann, Boveri, and the other early cell biologists and embryologists, and the coverage of symbiosis, microbial evolutionary phylogenies, and the new understanding of the diversification of life coming from comparative analyses of complete microbial genomes. The book is a history of theories about evolution, genes and organisms from Lamarck and Darwin to the present day. This is the first book on the general history of evolutionary biology to include the history of research and theories about symbiosis in evolution, and first to include research on microbial evolution which were excluded from the classical neo-Darwinian synthesis. Bacterial evolution, and symbiosis in evolution are also excluded from virtually every book on the history of biology.
