I’m a biomedical anthropologist/epidemiologist with a post-doctoral studies in Human Genetics. I learned about pharmacology and medicinal chemistry at a large Swiss pharmaceutical company. There, we developed some of the first precision medicines in oncology—treating tumors with a specific protein signature. We took the next step to personalize prescription medicine, which is in its infancy. The goal is to prescribe the right drug, the first time—prescribing drugs that work with patient genes. As VP, Global Research Strategy and SVP, Global Pharmaceutical Strategy, this has been my vision for decades, and why I wrote The Goldilocks Genome to introduce personalized medicine to the lay public in a compelling read.
My mother was a Freudian psychiatrist who prescribed antidepressants as a last resort, while my brother, also a psychiatrist, turns to antidepressants as first-line therapy. I wanted to learn more about why my family members took these different approaches.
Before Prozac is a wonderful history and behind-the-scenes look at the medical treatment of depression and related disorders. I learned about the politics behind restricting access to benzodiazepines (like Valium®), how Prozac® was designed to be an anti-histamine until Lilly found a better indication and much more.
This is the first book I recommend to my friends who have a personal or academic interest in depression. I couldn’t put it down and suggest it to friends who are interested in the history of modern medicine.
Like most people, the two diseases of aging that scare me the most are ischemic stroke and Alzheimer’s disease. I don’t want to lose my ability to think, and I want to preserve my memory. So...there is no time like the present to explore what I can do to learn how to prevent Alzheimer’s disease.
Bredesen is the first neuroscientist I’ve encountered who describes different types of Alzheimer’s and offers practical diagnostic and dietary advice. I’ve explored his recommendations, and I think they’re sound. I’ve suggested this to many of my friends for them and/or for their parents and loved ones.
The instant New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller
A groundbreaking plan to prevent and reverse Alzheimer’s Disease that fundamentally changes how we understand cognitive decline.
Everyone knows someone who has survived cancer, but until now no one knows anyone who has survived Alzheimer's Disease.
In this paradigm shifting book, Dale Bredesen, MD, offers real hope to anyone looking to prevent and even reverse Alzheimer's Disease and cognitive decline. Revealing that AD is not one condition, as it is currently treated, but three, The End of Alzheimer’s outlines 36 metabolic factors (micronutrients, hormone levels, sleep) that can trigger "downsizing"…
Paganini was an extraordinary violinist because of his exceptionally flexible thumb. Why was his thumb so “bendy”? Genetics. His genes provided an opportunity, and he learned how to exploit it.
Each of us is genetically unique. Our challenge is to understand our genes, which can be positive or negative. The Violinist’s Thumb is a nice introduction to the importance of DNA and the impact of genes in history. Inbreeding in the European royals led to hemophilia and ultimately contributed to the fall of the Czar and the Russian Empire. Genes have played a major role in history, art, and science.
From New York Times bestselling author Sam Kean comes incredible stories of science, history, language, and music, as told by our own DNA.
In The Disappearing Spoon, bestselling author Sam Kean unlocked the mysteries of the periodic table. In The Violinist's Thumb, he explores the wonders of the magical building block of life: DNA.
There are genes to explain crazy cat ladies, why other people have no fingerprints, and why some people survive nuclear bombs. Genes illuminate everything from JFK's bronze skin (it wasn't a tan) to Einstein's genius. They prove that Neanderthals and humans bred thousands of years more…
There is nothing that worries me more than when I hear that someone has been transferred to the intensive care unit with an infectious disease.
There are reasonable, not perfect, treatments and approaches to treat bacterial infections—although they are becoming fewer and fewer. Rarely discussed is the threat of fungal infection with Candida auris in hospitals—a treatment-resistant and hearty strain that is infecting and taking the lives of immunocompromised or weakened patients in the hospital. Unlike bacteria and viruses, fungi are resilient and can remain dormant in many environments. It is not just hospitals where fungi are dangerous; they can infect the lungs of desert dwellers and cause destruction in forests.
I suggest this book to my friends who want to be aware and take precautions (as much as possible) and encourage pharma and biotech to develop new tools/medicines to control deadly hospital infections.
Fungi are everywhere. Most are harmless, some are helpful. A few are killers. Collectively, infectious fungi are the most devastating agents of disease on Earth, and a fungus that can persist in the environment without its host is here for the long haul. In gripping, accessible prose, Emily Monosson documents how changing climate, trade and travel are making us all more vulnerable to invasion. Populations of bats, frogs and salamanders face extinction, and scientists don't have a cure. The American Northwest's beloved National Parks are covered with the spindly corpses of white bark pines. Food crops are under siege, threatening…
Who doesn’t love a true story of David and Goliath? Who really believes that the inventor of the “better mousetrap” always wins? This is a real-life medical thriller when the properties of a mineral were found to be a cheaper, better solution to stopping battlefield bleeding.
The “Davids” took on “Goliath,” who supported their vested interests in an inferior product that cost the lives of infantrymen. It took a courageous whistle-blower to come forward and change the trajectory. Ultimately the mineral was adopted and used effectively in the Iraq War. The better trauma medicine won, but it took years. The story is, sadly, all too real—but good does triumph!
The "high-stakes" true story of how an absent-minded inventor and a down-on-his-luck salesman joined forces to create a once‑in‑a‑generation lifesaving product: "Suspenseful storytelling helps us see and feel the struggle and frustration, the sweat and tears . . . Inspiring” (Robert Kolker, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Hidden Valley Road).
At the 1993 Battle of Mogadishu, dramatized by the popular film Black Hawk Down, the majority of soldiers who died were killed instantly or bled to death before they could reach an operating table. This tragedy reinforced the need for a revolutionary treatment that could transform trauma medicine.…
When a psychopathic serial killer uses medical technology to exact revenge, epidemiologist Carrie Hediger must investigate to solve the death of her friend. Convinced her friend has been poisoned, the heroine hones in on the murderer using statistics, persuasion, persistence, and disregard of the rules to trap him. Genes are the blueprints for the enzymes that metabolize drugs. Drugs are “just right” for about 40% of patients and “too much” or “too little” for the remainder. Outside of the Goldilocks zone, the results can be fatal. This novel is a thrilling story of revenge, justice, and medical investigation that will captivate you.
I come by my interest in history and the years before, during, and after the Second World War honestly. For one thing, both my father and my father-in-law served as pilots in the war, my father a P-38 pilot in North Africa and my father-in-law a B-17 bomber pilot in England. Their histories connect me with a period I think we can still almost reach with our fingertips and one that has had a momentous impact on our lives today. I have taken that interest and passion to discover and write true life stories of the war—focusing on the untold and unheard stories often of the “Average Joe.”
October 24, 1944, is not a day of national remembrance. Yet, more Americans serving in World War II perished on that day than on any other single day of the war.
The narrative of No Average Day proceeds hour by hour and incident by incident while focusing its attention on ordinary individuals—clerks, radio operators, cooks, sailors, machinist mates, riflemen, and pilots and their air crews. All were men who chose to serve their country and soon found themselves in a terrifying and otherworldly place.
No Average Day reveals the vastness of the war as it reaches past the beaches in…
October 24, 1944, is not a day of national remembrance. Yet, more Americans serving in World War II perished on that day than on December 7, 1941, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, or on June 6, 1944, when the Allies stormed the beaches of Normandy, or on any other single day of the war. In its telling of the events of October 24, No Average Day proceeds hour by hour and incident by incident. The book begins with Army Private First-Class Paul Miller's pre-dawn demise in the Sendai #6B Japanese prisoner of war camp. It concludes with the death…
