The Second Tree: Stem Cells, Clones, Chimeras, and Quests for Immortality

by Dewar, Elaine

• ISBN13: 9780786716838
• ISBN10: 0786716835
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-12-19
• Publisher: Perseus Books Group

Summary

In the half century since Watson and Crick's discovery of the double helix, genetic scientists have grafted onto the tree of knowledge a body of new science whose growth has slipped the bonds of the divine and nature. Investigative journalist Elaine Dewar chronicles the lives, discoveries, and feuds among these modern biologists, exploring how they have crafted the tools to alter human evolution with unforeseeable, promising, and frightening consequences the rest of us are just beginning to glimpse. Dewar travels the world in the wake of Charles Darwin and his intellectual descendants, telling the story of Frederick Sanger who learned how to sequence genes and won two Nobel prizes; and of the computer scientists who put the human genome on the worldwide web. She visits corporations determined to turn cloned sheep into pharmacies, resurrect prize cattle from the dead; and transplant human genes into miceultimately striving for immortality while keeping investors happy. As Dewar narrates these tales, we learn how biologists make breakthroughs: tearing mice, worms, flies, and human eggs apart, twining disparate animal cells and genes togethercreating clones and chimeras as outlandish as any sphinx from the realm of mythology.

Author Biography

Elaine Dewar is an award-winning investigative reporter whose beats include culture, international politics, science, business, and the environment. About her earlier book, Bones: Discovering the First Americans, also available from Carroll & Graf, historian Peter C. Newman has called Dewar “the Rachel Carson of Canada,” whose work “is aimed always at expanding mental horizons.” She lives in Toronto.

Table of Contents

Introduction	1	(20)
PART ONE
CHAPTER ONE Biologists Seize the Day	21	(22)
CHAPTER TWO Clones, Anyone?	43	(9)
CHAPTER THREE How Many Ways Can You Make a Mouse?	52	(23)
CHAPTER FOUR Unraveling Mortality	75	(20)
CHAPTER FIVE A Little Skin Magic	95	(14)
CHAPTER SIX Flies, Worms and Running-Dog Geneticists	109	(32)
CHAPTER SEVEN The Pig Farm of Dr. Moreau	141	(23)
CHAPTER EIGHT Rendezvous at the Fountain of Youth	164	(27)
CHAPTER NINE Vested Ethics	191	(16)
CHAPTER TEN Dr. Watson, I Presume?	207	(24)
PART TWO
CHAPTER ELEVEN Roots	231	(24)
CHAPTER TWELVE Descendants	255	(33)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN Hello Dolly	288	(18)
CHAPTER FOURTEEN Fresh from the New Garden	306	(34)
CHAPTER FIFTEEN Is It Safe?	340	(26)
CHAPTER SIXTEEN Computing Life	366	(34)
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN The Sovereign State of Biology	400	(29)
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN A Noble Prize	429	(26)
Loose Ends and Acknowledgments	455	(8)
Notes	463	(16)
Bibliography	479	(24)
Index	503