Customer Reviews

Chips, Clones, and Living Beyond 100: How Far Will the Biosciences Take Us?

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(22)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I am not sure what the point of this book was intended to be. Perhaps it is intended as a primer to businesspeople to lure them into investing in biosciences research. My second best guess is that this is intended as a means to make investors feel like they understand this technology, so that they can feel comfortable trading in these stocks. These goals seem likeliest, as opposed to, you know, actually TEACHING something, as it is not as accurate as it should be in many respects.

For example, easily checked facts were wrong. On page 4, the research of Dr. Cynthia Kenyon on daf-2 (italics!) is mentioned. This was not the first discovery of a longevity gene, or even one in C. elegans (I wish there were italics available in reviews!). To the best of my knowledge, the earliest discovery of such a gene was in 1988, five years earlier, Tom Johnson and his colleagues identified and cloned a gene named age-1, which has many of the same effects as daf-2 (they are, in fact, in the same genetic pathway).

A similar mistake is made on the NEXT page, where SIR2 is discussed. This gene, while prolonging lifespan, is ALSO in the genetic pathway of daf-2, which means that the effects of disrupting them will almost certainly not prove to be additive. In all probability, I could have done this all day, except that they stopped mentioning specific scientific findings after the first chapter, and began to mention generalities and technologies, instead, such as the potential to use monoclonal antibodies as anti-cancer vaccination therapies. While these are scientific breakthroughs, they are not scientific findings. This is no more scientific than a discussion of microprocessor architecture would be. This is engineering, not science. And while engineering is what takes science from a lab to a hospital and while understanding engineering is more likely to lead to solid predictions of future market results than understanding science, these are not the claims. Even this is doesn't preclude them from dramatic, and critical, errors, as they conflate pluripotent and totipotent stem cells on pg. 50 and 51, which means that a true understanding of the potentials and pitfalls of these treatments remains elusive.

If this were not enough, there are other problems that are non-factual. For example, pages 110 and 112 both feature a chart of the world. Both are labeled to be the Global Malaria Report from 2008, courtesy of the WHO. The problem is that the chart on pg. 110 is intended to represent the spread of AIDS, not malaria.

Mistakes aside, there is relatively little information that is new to someone who has had a basic molecular biology course. From this perspective, there is no reason to read this book. I guess if you don't know anything about it at all, this probably would be a good enough primer, if you are interested mainly from the point of view of what is technically possible and not from the perspective of actually learning how and why these discoveries were made or what they mean.

In short, if you are looking for some guide to what is possible, this is a good beginning. If you are looking for something more detailed, take Alberts Molecular Biology of the Cell. If you are interested in investing in this material, go invest in some research, not in stock. Nothing here will give you the vaguest idea as to what will or will not succeed, so as far as investing advice goes, I would consider it highly dubious.

When I ordered this book, I figured I'd be learning about new and emerging technologies that would increase the quality of life for everyone on our little planet.

Unfortunately, I should have read the product description a little more carefully - as you'll see below, this book focuses more on future possibilities of the year 2025 and less on the bioscience technologies themselves.

I'll pick apart the back cover descriptions to illustrate my dissatisfaction with this book. Let's start from the top:

["A stimulating and exciting look at how we got to the present state of health care and where we can potentially go. A unique perspective and a great read." David Lester, Ph.D., President, ITHW Inc.; formerly Director, Human Health Technologies, Pfizer Inc.]

That's the key phrase: where we can _potentially_ go. Several chapters in this novel make projections about the biosciences and how improvements or failures can affect family structures, economics, business, and so forth. The first chapter glosses over a few breakthroughs of living beyond 100, but quickly moves to discussing if the world can afford a large centenarian age group. This happens over and over throughout the book - a technology is briefly discussed, and the topic switches to how it could affect the future in various ways.

["The explosion of new knowledge in the biosciences will raise important challenges for our social, ethical, and economic thinking. The Schoemakers have given us an incredibly useful book to stimulate that thinking. One could not ask for a better guidebook to an exciting if challenging future." Professor Arthur L. Caplan, Director of the Center for Bioethics and Hart Professor, University of Pennsylvania]

I don't know if I'd call this a guidebook. As far as thinking, it basically tells us what most people already know - people are afraid of change and the sciences always fight an uphill battle with research, testing, implementation, and can be set back decades if failures occur, such as 3 Mile Island causing the cessation of nuclear power plant construction in the U.S.

["What a fascinating book! The authors have really mastered all the aspects (social, human, scientific, and business) of the biomedical revolution that is taking place this century. Awesome." Giancarlo Barolat,M.D., Director, Barolat Neuroscience, Presbyterian St. Luke Medical Center, Denver; formerly Professor of Neurosurgery at Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia]

This is true, but to a point - there is a chapter titled "Snapshot of the biosciences", which says it all. The chapter has an all-too-brief overview of cloning, protein based technologies, and not even a full page is given to the subject of DNA chips. This is what I wanted to read about, but I was left wanting after 20 pages.

["Wonderfully comprehensive, yet still digestible for non-scientists. Wish I had this book when we examined some health care innovation opportunities at GE; it would have provided a great foundation for the team." Patia McGrath, Global Director - Innovation and Strategic Connections, Corporate Marketing, General Electric]

Digestible? Yes. I don't know if I'd agree with comprehensive. When you consider that chapters 1-3 are primarily on the biosciences and chapters 4-9 explore business models, the healthcare system, possible future wildcards and societal reactions, it's clear that science gets the low end of attention in this book.

This is not a book which focuses on bioscience, it focuses on possible futures that could come about if people embrace or prohibit the bioscience movement. While entertaining and thought-provoking, I was found wanting more.

Okay, but not what I expected. I'd suggest passing on this book.

While chock-full of great information, this book is unfortunately written too much like a textbook for my taste (i.e., it puts me to sleep when I try to read it for too long in a single sitting). From other books of this type I have read, I know this information can be made more palatable for the non-scientist, so I was a bit disappointed that this text - which sounded appealing - wasn't more readable for the lay-person.

That said, for those who do want to learn more about the biosciences and the advances currently being made in the field, this is definitely a good place to start.

I read this book expecting to learn more about the future of biosciences and latest biotechnologies, and where they are heading, looking for something more than the glimpse offered in most newsprint or science magazines. Sadly, this book disappoints. It provides only a vague and generalized insight into the subject. There isn't enough substance to make it a text book; yet, it reads like one. It might be insightful for someone with absolutely no understanding of biotechnologies (and hasn't skimmed a science or technology magazine in the past five years), but there isn't anything revealing here that hasn't already been covered better in a previous issue of the Discover magazine. Sections in each chapter are mildly informative, but not enough to sustain reader interest. Too much is wasted on filler, redundant history lessons about the medical field or societal factors that impact the field, leading away from the point of the book rather than toward it. Anyone with an interest in this topic will likely be looking for more than this book can offer. I think with the author's topical knowledge, this book had the potential to be so much better.

The Schoemakers give us both a history of the Biosciences and a glimpse into a possible Future. They believe that what the Computer did for the world beginning in the 1970's Bioscience will do for the World of the 21st Century. Advances in Medicine and Gene therapies will result in human life spans increasing up to age 130 with a good quality of life.

Chapter 1 deals with the current state of medicine and how advances in treatments and diagnostics will help people to both live long and live well. Chapter 2 gives a history of the biosciences from the early 1800's when people such as Lister and Semmelweis turned medicine on its head by showing disease didn't result from Humours but from microbes. The discovery of the cause and cures for plague, rabies, cholera, diphtheria and the like have increased people's life spans significantly in the past 100 years.

Chapter 3 is a snapshot of the biosciences. It explains a number of DNA industries that have developed since the advent of the Human Genome Project. The work with Clones, vaccines, gene therapy, and other advances are discussed. Chapter 4 is written with tech business consultant Nanda Ramanujan and explores the potential of new businesses that may result from Bioscience technologies. Such things as telemedicine and remote diagnostics, cloning genes in plants to create vaccines, the development of biofuels and biomass alternative energy sources are all possible engines for new Bioscience based businesses.

Chapter 5 is written with Jim Austin deals with new advances in Biomedicine and the businesses being developed there. New plastics and alloys for artificial joints, new medicines grown from the mapping of exotic plants, new diagnostic tools that enable diagnosis to be made earlier and earlier are all new advances that make the bioscience business profitable.

The rest of the book deals with the future of biosciences and what the development or the lack thereof of new technologies will mean for us all. In the worst case scenario medicine will be much the same as we see today. Best case scenario we live to nearly 120 routinely with a good quality of life.

I did enjoy reading about the future of biosciences. I like that the book is well written and is easy for the layman to understand. It is also well sourced so that you can explore the field further on your own if you wish.

The issues/opportunities of bio-sciences/-technologies are quite well and accessibly explained while taking into account the social impact they might have. A good read for politicians, entrepreneurs and anyone curious about what might be.

This book is informative without being evocative. I found it to be a well researched and informative overview, essentially a scholarly review, of various aspects of the biosciences. It's almost as if someone commissioned a study and decided to publish the results. It is a nice little distillation with numerous pointers for further study. Overall, I found the information valuable but the book unsatisfying.

It was unsatisfying because of my own expectations going in. I was hoping for something akin to The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence by Ray Kurzweil. If you want something more evocative and satisfying or that makes projections, go to Kurzweil. If you want a good overview of circa 2009 biosciences, this book is for you.

In the end, I treated this book as an investment reference and not so much a technical reference. Every stock portfolio should have some bioscience companies in it these days.

The first portion of the book is a very good briefing of where technology is today and how we got there; what we can diagnose, fix, or prevent.

The last and smaller portion of the book is what one might have expected the entire book to be about based on the subtitle "How Far Will the Biosciences Take Us?". Here the authors sort of take the easy way out. Instead of hazarding any guesstimates as to where we'll be in any given number of years, they present two extreme scenarios: 1) the Golden Age scenario where we have unlimited funding and have cured cancer and the common cold, and 2) the step-backwards scenario where there is no funding and we're drowned in lawsuits and fear. It's not much of a thought process to lay out these two paths, and the chance that either of these extremes will be the truth is practically nil; we will likely be somewhere in the gray in between and the authors don't take a stab at locating that point based on historical trends and current forecasts.

The authors attempt to condense a lot of information on the history and current status of biosciences and biotechnology into this short book. (The main text is 175 pages.) The first 124 pages are a data-dump on a wide assortment of ailments, drugs, and companies involved in the medical device and drug markets, and plenty of life sciences jargon. Readers familiar with this community will be inclined to skip over the initial 70 percent of the book, while those who are uninitiated may find it a confusing mix.
The final 50 pages get to the part I was waiting for: the extrapolation of trends to 2025 and the generation of probable scenarios. However, I found the discussion disappointing. It describes four simple scenarios based on two variables (science & tech progress and societal acceptance) and develops only two of them - the most optimistic and the most pessimistic - in 10 pages each. Even that short discussion tends to repeat issues addressed earlier in the book.
There's a lot of good information in the book, but I didn't find the presentation engaging, nor do I expect it would be particularly enlightening for readers with better-than-average background in this area. Admittedly, this is a difficult subject to present to a broad audience. Every living human has an obvious interest in where we're going in medical science and technology, but the subject matter is complex, rapidly evolving, and has a language all its own. Unfortunately, the book doesn't draw you into this world and leave you with thought-provoking take-aways.
The authors (and presumably, the editors) have given the book a bit of an identity crisis. The title is intriguing, but misleading - "chips, clones, and living beyond 100" are mentioned in a couple of places in the book, but are not developed nearly enough to rate a place in the title. I also found myself wondering, is the book for general readers, or is it intended to lean more towards scholarly work? Some parts are generously footnoted, other parts are very thinly referenced even when the reader would expect some documentation. (For example, page 169 tells us that premature infants in neonatal wards tend to develop better under LED lighting than regular illumination, but there's no reference for this unusual finding.)
Readers interested in this area will need to cast their nets wider to get a more complete picture.

This is a short book containing a series of articles on modern biotechnology and possible near-term advances. I picked it up primarily because I read a lot of science fiction and the "grabby" title made the book seem like it was going to be an in-depth projection of the next hundred years or so of biotechnology.

Most of the book, wasn't that. Most of the book is, instead, a general-audience summary of modern biotechnology, opening with headings like "The Discovery of Antibiotics" or "The DNA Revolution" (presumably to catch everyone up who can't remember high school biology). Several articles then cover the state of modern biotechnology from a scientific and business perspective (apparently, the pharmaceutical industry is under a lot of pressure these days).

Only the final two chapters (out of nine, not including appendices) really indulge in actual speculation about what technologies might lead to an average lifespan above 100, and what such an extended general lifespan might mean for society (primarily, in their discussion, Western society).

All that said, I'll give the book four stars because the authors clearly know their material and I did learn something new in every chapter (even if sometimes that something was only "Hey, this person they're citing looks really interesting.") It doesn't make it to five, though, largely because it seems to have never decided on an audience -- it seems too technical for general audience readers, too dumbed-down for technical readers, and with only a bare minimum of the title's promised speculation.