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A review by blainewajdowiczblinked
Life at the Speed of Light: From the Double Helix to the Dawn of Digital Life by J. Craig Venter
5.0
A must have on the book shelf of any reader of biology/scientific texts.
Life as a set of information, instructions to dictate the synthesis and activation of proteins (along with replication of these instructions) is a fascinating insight into biology that side steps political rhetoric. Dr Venter details through collaboration of the private sector (such as his company and institute) along with the public (NIH) the progress up to 2012 of application of the knowledge of these instructions as well as future utilization to include vaccine development in pandemics such as H1N1, planetary exploration, and therapeutic bacteriophage deployment in an age of increasing antibiotic resistance. I also appreciate the author’s brief but insightful discussion on the ethics of application of this information, including how to frame the ethical imperative of utilizing the benefits of genetic sequencing and how to consistently seek ethical review on application of this information.
Stunning to think how, reading this ten years later, the information here may be outdated. This was personally a reminiscent journey into the history of genomics I studied in a high school Honors DNA Science class and undergraduate Microbiology course.
Life as a set of information, instructions to dictate the synthesis and activation of proteins (along with replication of these instructions) is a fascinating insight into biology that side steps political rhetoric. Dr Venter details through collaboration of the private sector (such as his company and institute) along with the public (NIH) the progress up to 2012 of application of the knowledge of these instructions as well as future utilization to include vaccine development in pandemics such as H1N1, planetary exploration, and therapeutic bacteriophage deployment in an age of increasing antibiotic resistance. I also appreciate the author’s brief but insightful discussion on the ethics of application of this information, including how to frame the ethical imperative of utilizing the benefits of genetic sequencing and how to consistently seek ethical review on application of this information.
Stunning to think how, reading this ten years later, the information here may be outdated. This was personally a reminiscent journey into the history of genomics I studied in a high school Honors DNA Science class and undergraduate Microbiology course.