It Takes a Genome

By Greg Gibson
FT Press, $24.99, 187 pages

By crushing the idea of simplistic, medical-headline-type solutions to mankind’s genetic vulnerabilities, this author has performed a valuable service for the educated public. It Takes A Genome emphasizes that, like the “village” from which the title is spun, a “Genome” is an interacting community of great complexity and depth.

Himself one of the foremost authorities in Genomics, the field that examines the interactions between human genetics and the environment, and the effects of that interaction on the health and continuing adaptation of our bodies, Gibson is Professor of Genetics at NCSU and of Integrative Biology at the U of Queensland.

He gently reproves his colleagues and the press who trumpet every shred of discovery as a potential “cure ” for something or other and laicizes the complex world and language of genetics very effectively. His humor and careful explanations make this an engaging and very satisfying read.

His chief point is the recency of the development of our modern environment and the sheer age and variety of the genetic equipment we humans have borne into it.

I earnestly recommend this bracing dose of common sense from a learned man.

Reviewed by David Lloyd Sutton