Biotechnology Unzipped: Promises and Realities, Revised Second Edition - Softcover

A Joseph Henry Press Book; Grace, Eric S.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0309096219 ISBN 13: 9780309096218

Publisher: Joseph Henry Press, 2006

Synopsis

"Biotechnology" may raise more hope and fear...revelation and confusion...excitement and alarm than any other term in today's headlines. In Biotechnology Unzipped, scientist and skilled science popularizer Eric Grace helps readers understand what biotechnology is and what implications it holds for all of us.
Grace offers a reader-friendly explanation of how we came to where we are--from the coining of the word "cell" in 1665 through Darwin's breakthrough insight on evolution and the unraveling of the DNA helix to the 1997 announcement of the cloning of Dolly the sheep.
This book uses everyday metaphors to help readers understand the genetic code and how it works to produce every form of life. Grace deals frankly with the reality that biotechnology is first and foremost a commercial activity. Focusing on the ethical implications, he looks at the scope of public opinion, the role of the media, the vulnerability of the poor to exploitation, and the problem of patenting life itself.
Grace explores the promises and realities of biotechnology in major arenas:

• The human body. The medical industry is today's biggest customer for biotechnology, and Grace presents its application as a continuum from the earliest experiments with skin grafting in the 1800s. He reports on the progress of gene therapy and other medical marvels--yet Grace argues that high-tech medicine does not guarantee longer, healthier lives any more than high-tech weapons guarantee world peace.
• The farm. Is biotechnology the answer to world hunger or is it self-serving rhetoric from agribusiness? Grace explores the reality between these two points of view through examples, including the controversy over bovine growth hormone, increased use of herbicides and pesticides, and genetic modification of plants.
• The environment. Biotechnology Unzipped looks at the promise of microbes cleaning up pollutants such as the Exxon Valdez spill. Alternate Selection, Newbridge Science Book Club

Table of Contents

• Front Matter
• Chapter 1 How Biotechnology Came About
• Chapter 2 Tools in the Genetic Engineering Workshop
• Chapter 3 Biotechnology and the Body
• Chapter 4 Biotechnology on the Farm
• Chapter 5 Biotechnology and the Environment
• Chapter 6 Biotechnology in Seas and Trees
• Chapter 7 Ethical Issues
• Postscript
• Glossary
• Further Reading
• Internet Resources
• Index
• Photo Credits & Sources

About this title

About the Author:

by Eric S. Grace, A Joseph Henry Press book

Review:

Grace makes his complex subject easy to digest by dividing each chapter into palatable sections with clever subheads and often humorous sidebars, including a recipe for making DNA that calls for ingredients like "a handful of bacteria (about a thousand million)." He includes a dispassionate discussion of ethical repercussions and public concerns.... Since "the focus of biotechnology companies is profit, not philanthropy," Biotechnology Unzipped serves to caution us that without the requisite judiciousness, even the most wondrous and potentially life-saving feats of science "cannot, in the end, save us from who we are". -- The New York Times Book Review, Jacqueline Boone

About this edition

• Publisher: Joseph Henry Press
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0309096219
• ISBN 13: 9780309096218
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 255