Embryonic stem cell research holds unique promise for developing therapies for currently incurable diseases and conditions, and for important biomedical research. However, the process through which embryonic stem cells are obtained involves the destruction of early human embryos. Katrien Devolder focuses on the tension between the popular view that an embryo should never be deliberately harmed or destroyed, and the view that embryonic stem cell research, because of its enormous promise, mu...

The #1 NEW YORK TIMES BestsellerThe basis for the PBS Ken Burns Documentary The Gene: An Intimate HistoryNow includes an excerpt from Siddhartha Mukherjee**’**s new book Song of the Cell!From the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Emperor of All Maladies—a fascinating history of the gene and “a magisterial account of how human minds have laboriously, ingen...

BY THE WINNER OF THE 2020 NOBEL PRIZE IN CHEMISTRY | Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize“A powerful mix of science and ethics . . . This book is required reading for every concerned citizen—the material it covers should be discussed in schools, colleges, and universities throughout the country.”— New York Review of BooksNot since the atomic bomb has a technology so alarmed its inventors that they warned the world...

While procreation is ubiquitous, attention to the ethical issues involved in creating children is relatively rare. In Debating Procreation, David Benatar and David Wasserman take opposing views on this important question. David Benatar argues for the anti-natalist view that it is always wrong to bring new people into existence. He argues that coming into existence is always a serious harm and that even if it were not always so, the risk of serious harm is sufficiently great to make procrea...

LONGLISTED FOR THE THE BMA MEDICAL BOOK AWARDSAccording to a wry saying among radiologists, finding a tumour in a mammogram is like finding a snowball in a blizzard. Up to thirty percent of breast-cancer diagnoses are given to those who have no cancer at all. Medicine is subject to far more uncertainty than we commonly acknowledge. While it is portrayed a science, it can sometimes be scarily close to educated guesswork.Covering everything from the efficacy ...

Would you change your genes if you could? As we confront the 'industrial revolution of the genome', the recent discoveries of Crispr-Cas9 technologies are offering, for the first time, cheap and effective methods for editing the human genome. This opens up startling new opportunities as well as significant ethical uncertainty. Tracing events across a fifty-year period, from the first gene splicing techniques to the present day, this is the story of gene editing - the science, the impact an...

Within twenty, maybe forty, years most people in developed countries will stop having sex for the purpose of reproduction. Instead, prospective parents will be told as much as they wish to know about the genetic makeup of dozens of embryos, and they will pick one or two for implantation, gestation, and birth. And it will be safe, lawful, and free. In this work of prophetic scholarship, Henry T. Greely explains the revolutionary biological technologies that make this future a seeming inevit...

A thoughtful evaluation of the vaccine debate, its history, and its consequences.Since 1990, the number of mandated vaccines has increased dramatically. Today, a fully vaccinated child will have received nearly three dozen vaccinations between birth and age six. Along with the increase in number has come a growing wave of concern among parents about the unintended side effects of vaccines. In Vaccine, Mark A. Largent explains the history of the debate and ...

Embryo adoptions, stem cells capable of transforming into any cell in the human body, intra- and inter-species organ transplantation—these and other biomedical advances have unsettled ideas of what it means to be human, of when life begins and ends. In the first study to consider the cultural impact of the medical transformation of the entire human life span, Susan Merrill Squier argues that fiction—particularly science fiction—serves as a space where worries about ethically and socially c...

Bioethics, Public Moral Argument, and Social Responsibility explores the role of democratically oriented argument in promoting public understanding and discussion of the benefits and burdens of biotechnological progress.The contributors examine moral and policy controversies surrounding biomedical technologies and their place in American society, beginning with an examination of discourse and moral authority in democracy, and addressing a set of issues that include: dignit...

What does it mean to be a "just" and "caring" society when we have only limited resources to meet unlimited health care needs? Do we believe that all lives are of equal value? Is human life priceless? Should a "just" and "caring" society refuse to put limits on health care spending? In Just Caring, Leonard Fleck reflects on the central moral and political challenges of health reform today. He cites the millions of Americans who go without health insurance, thousands of whom die pr...

Synthetic biology is becoming one of the most dynamic new fields of biology, with the potential to revolutionize the way we do biotechnology today. By applying the toolbox of engineering disciplines to biology, a whole set of potential applications become possible ranging very widely across scientific and engineering disciplines. Some of the potential benefits of synthetic biology, such as the development of low-cost drugs or the production of chemicals and energy by engineered bacteria ar...