An Immense New Power to Heal

March 19, 2012
The Human Genome Project, which surveyed the entire human hereditary structure, promised to usher in a revolutionary age of medicine. Armed with knowledge of their own genetic flaws, say Gutkind (Almost Human: Making Robots Think) and Kennedy (The First Man-Made Man, a study of two 1940s transsexuals), patients could make early, life-saving decisions and get more targeted treatments. But this troubling account finds that this promise hasn’t been realized because—thanks to the structure of our health-care system and the complex results genetic tests provide—most health-care providers don’t use genetic testing. The authors follow the stories of innovative patients and doctors, including Michael Saks, who wanted to know if his family history of pancreatic cancer meant the disease was his destiny; Steve Murphy, the “Gene Sherpa” who set out to be the first private practitioner of personalized medicine; and Nobel winner Leland Hartwell, who helped discover biomarkers that explained the mechanisms of cancer. Gutkind and Kennedy giddily trumpet the extraordinary possibilities of technology and information in preventing sickness. And they’re especially optimistic about the role of the Internet in giving patients access to life-saving information and to one another, since ultimately, they claim, it’ll be patients who’ll nudge doctors into the brave new world of personalized medicine.

May 1, 2012
The successful completion of the Human Genome Project in 2003 created both hope and hype with regard to advancements in medical therapies. The delineation of precise genetic information suggested the possibility of predicting an individual's future health as well as the theoretical ability to intervene and fix it. Nearly a decade later, Gutkind and Kennedy (writers who are well versed in exploring both the technical and personal sides of science and medicine) chronicle the growing pains of personalized medicine, a genomic-driven, individualized type of preventive health care with uniquely targeted treatments. Interviews with researchers, patients, physicians, and others in the genomic business lead the authors to conclude that although personalized medicine has plenty of power and promise, it has a long way to go before becoming the standard of medical care. Sequencing your own genome is already quite accessible and getting cheaper all the time. Managing and making sense of vast amounts of genetic data remain daunting.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)