Biomedicine and the Human Condition: Challenges, Risks, and Rewards - Hardcover

Sargent, Michael G.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0521833663 ISBN 13: 9780521833660

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2005

Synopsis

How to avoid disease, how to breed successfully and how to live to a reasonable age, are questions that have perplexed mankind throughout history. This 2005 book explores our progress in understanding these challenges, and the risks and rewards of our attempts to find solutions. From the moment of conception, nutrition and exposure to microbes or alien chemicals have consequences that are etched into our cells and genomes. Such events have a crucial impact on development in utero and in childhood, and later, on the way we age, respond to infection, or the likelihood of developing chronic diseases, including cancer. The issues covered include the powerful influence of infectious disease on human society, the burden of our genetic legacy and the lottery of procreation. The author discusses how prospects for human life might continually improve as biomedicine addresses these problems and also debates the ethical checkpoints encountered.

About this title

About the Author

Michael G. Sargent is a Research Scientist in Developmental Biology at the National Institute for Medical Research at Mill Hill, London.

Edition details

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0521833663
• ISBN 13: 9780521833660
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 364