At the hospital my colleagues spoke of recombinant DNA, Phosphorylation, Introns, and, of course, genes. Thus, whilst my background covered High School Anatomy and a bit of Mendel’s experiments, all I seemed to remember of Biology was months studying the shapes of leaves. Who has not met, either in school or a family member that is/was a bit different? I went to school in an age before Autism or ADHD were diagnosed, but how many of my own classmates might have experienced some of these conditions (and were simply labelled as lazy, disruptive or dispersed)?Īt this moment I have to say that I approached this book, and in Biology in general, from the point of view of someone who studied Electrical Engineering (BS, MSc), Computer Science (PhD) and afterwards took a dive into a postdoctoral position based in a hospital working among a group of cancer biologists. Whilst it is difficult to empathise with some of the scientists, when Dr Mukherjee warns the person who would eventually become his wife about the mental illnesses in his family, and the possibility of eventually developing them himself, I felt immersed into the story, an intimate story of genes and individuals.
Whilst The Gene covers every single detail about genes, from Mendel and Darwin to gene editing, the human perspective of genetic diseases is ever present in the very touching personal stories of the Mukherjee family. An Intimate History” Dr Siddhartha Mukherjee has written just that, an engaging, thought-provoking and thoroughly enjoyable book of the same level and quality as his previous masterpiece “ The Emperor of All Maladies”.
It may seem difficult to think that a 500-page book with as many notes describing the genetic advances in the past 150 year could be a “page-tuner” as this category is normally reserved to exciting novels. In "The Gene", Mukherjee engages the reader by presenting some members of his own family who suffer mental illnesses that have a genetic origin. An Intimate History" follows the success of " The Emperor of all Maladies" in which Cancer is presented as the main character of the book. Dr Siddhartha Mukherjee is the writer of several excellent books on scientific areas written for general public.
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