Molecular Genetic Medicine

Molecular Genetic Medicine, Volume I, provides an overview of the progress in several of the most important areas of modern molecular genetics and medicine. The aim is to present a technical and historical picture of the concept that it is through a thorough understanding of genetics of all kinds of human diseases, even infectious diseases, that effective treatments will finally come. The book opens with a discussion of the origins and development of the Human Genome Project. This is followed by separate chapters on the development of immune-deficient mice as models for human hematopoietic disease; the application of genetic techniques for testing identity and relatedness of persons; and advances in recombinant DNA technology and their applications in drug discovery. The final chapter discusses the impact of molecular biology and molecular evolution on debates about the origin of humans, and about the origins both of the characteristics that they share with other animals and of those that make humans unique.