The Rough Guide to Genes & Cloning

by Dr. Hsien-Hsien Lei
Posted July 18, 2007 in DNA Testing, DNA in General

An excellent collection of science writing is featured today in Tangled Bank #84: Science in Ancient Greece at The Voltage Gate. Jeremy shows a gorgeous, ornate book that reminds me of my first visit to Hatchards this morning. (Hatchards is special because they’ve been London “booksellers since 1797.”)

One of the books I left with was The Rough Guide to Genes and Cloning by Jess Buxton & Jon Turney published in April. I’ve only had a flip through the book but it looks like it would be an engaging read. I especially like the short bios of genetic scientists, including Kary Mullis (the inventor of the polymerase chain reaction- PCR), Craig Venter, and James Watson.

Here’s an excerpt from the book discussing DNA Direct where I am currently working as a consultant:

At the time of writing the vast majority of other commercial testing services offer genetic fingerprinting – for paternity, maternity or sibling testing, ancestry and forensic uses. But a few companies do now offer “home-testing” kits for a variety of diseases. DNA Direct, for example, will provide tests for alpha-1 antitypic deficiency, haemochromatosis, cystic fibrosis, breast and ovarian cancer and blood clotting disorders. New tests for drug response will be “available soon”. Their website (www.dnadirect.com) claims they are recommended by Good Housekeeping magazine. More convincingly, they meet the recent standards proposed by the US Food and Drug Administration and Center for Disease Control. The company maintains a highly informative blog about genes and testing at talk.dnadirect.com. [Eye on DNA note: DNA Direct Talk is a member of the DNA Network.]

NB: Rough Guides is branching out from travel publishing into reference material including science.

Tags: rough guides, genetics, genes, cloning, dna, genome, genomics, science, dna direct

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2007-07-19 11:02:11

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2007-07-21 05:06:35

[...] DNA research to be personal as well as an exciting explosion of knowlege – bioinfomatics is cool. The Rough Guide to Genes & Cloning Eye on DNA, by Dr. Hsien-Hsien Lei, Posted July 18, [...]

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2007-07-22 21:53:23

[...] Eye on DNA i Omics [...]

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