Ricki Lewis

All Sides with Ann Fisher

My weekly DNA Science blog published at Public Library of Science, with topics and relevant textbook chapter #s.

Table of DNA SCIENCE blog posts with links, topics and chapter #s in Human Genetics: Concepts and Applications

Get your students involved in helping families with rare genetic diseases! I present this program at the American Society of Human Genetics undergrad workshop each fall.

On a bright September day in 2008, 8-year-old Corey Haas went to the Philadelphia zoo with his parents, and screamed. Four days earlier he had gene therapy to cure his hereditary blindness, and now the sun was hurting his eyes. Corey’s suddenly restored vision marked a renaissance in gene therapy, a biotechnology sidelined nine years earlier when an 18-year-old died in a similar experiment in the same city.

The Forever Fix tells Corey’s inspiring story against the backdrop of other children treated since the field was born in 1990, and those looking ahead to future gene therapy. The treatments pioneered on rare diseases will reverberate to many more common ones. The Forever Fix is the tale of a biotechnology reborn, unfolding life a novel. Published by St. Martin's Press in March 2012.

Hole's Human Anatomy and Physiology was originally written by John Hole, but I have been co-authoring it with David Shier and Jackie Butler since the early 1990s. We are proud of the exciting readability of this classic textbook. 13th edition, January 2012. On iPad it rocks!

The age of genetic information is here. How will knowledge of our genes and genomes affect our lives? Will we use the information to improve health, or will it give us more to worry about or discriminate against? The book is widely used in colleges and high school AP classes. It is a joy to write!

Young nursing home resident Stuart Matheson has end-stage Huntington’s disease. Yet he’s been getting better since hospice volunteer Kelsey Raye began sharing her iPod with him. Could U2 music have reawakened stem cells in Stuart’s brain? Then the unexpected happens. Is science to blame? Or something more sinister?

DNA is information on who we are: where we came from, how we live today, and where we might be headed. Peppered with historical anecdotes and compelling contemporary cases, Human Genetics: The Basics offers a sweeping view of the field, from ancient peoples noting family resemblances to personal genome sequencing.