Life [Import] [Hardcover]

Ricki Lewis (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 976 pages
• Publisher: William C. Brown; 3Rev Ed edition (September 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0697285634
• ISBN-13: 978-0697285638
• Product Dimensions: 11 x 9.1 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #9,650,346 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

On a bright September Sunday in 2008, 8-year-old Corey Haas walked up the pathway to the Philadelphia zoo holding his parents' hands, looked up, and screamed. It was the first time he'd seen the sun.

Four days earlier, Corey had undergone gene therapy for hereditary blindness at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. An eye surgeon had gently placed billions of viruses bearing healing genes just beneath the rods and cones of Corey's left eye. Now, at the zoo, seeing the sun hurt.

Corey's suddenly restored vision marked a renaissance for gene therapy, a biotechnology sadly sidelined nine years earlier when an 18-year-old died in a similar experiment in the same city, also in just four days.

The Forever Fix tells the riveting saga of gene therapy: how it works, the science behind it, how young patients have been helped and harmed, and how researchers learned from each trial to inch one step closer to its immense promise, the promise of a "forever fix" - a cure that, by correcting a problem at its genetic roots, doesn't need further treatment.

Corey's inspiring true story unfolds against the backdrop of other children receiving gene therapy since the field was born in 1990, and those looking ahead to it in the coming months. The treatments pioneered on their rare diseases will reverberate to many more common illnesses. The compelling voices of the children, families, researchers, and physicians at the forefront of this biotechnology relate the ups and downs that have led to its recent success, and looming acceptance. And no one has told these intertwining stories - until now.

The Forever Fix, dedicated to the children of gene therapy, is a celebration of science, medicine, parent activism, and most important of all, hope.

RICKI LEWIS is a Ph.D. geneticist, journalist, professor and genetic counselor. The author of one of the most widely used college textbooks in the field (Human Genetics: Concepts and Applications, now in it's 10th edition), she has also written hundreds of articles for trade and specialized magazines, including Nature, Discover, and The Scientist. She is a hospice volunteer and frequent public speaker. Ricki lives near Schenectady, NY, and as much as possible in Martha's Vineyard.

Follow Ricki Lewis on Twitter (@rickilewis), on her blog Genetic Linkage (www.rickilewis.com), and at https/www.facebook.com/rickilewisauthor.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Does not explain concepts well, June 26, 2003

By 

"enseven" (Arlington, VA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Life with OLC passcard (Hardcover)

I used this book for 2 semesters of introductory biology in college. After the first month, I became frustrated with the poor explanations. I asked a few friends and they recommended Biology by Campbell. What a lifesaver!

I also continued to used this book and also found a number of errors in the pictures. This cost me a few points on tests and quizzes, so this added to my low opinion of this book. I also became hesitant to trust what it was telling me, particularly when there were differences between Campbell and this book.

It has a nice layout, and it breaks topics into meaningful chunks; the explanations were okay most times and simply inadequate too frequently for me. On a scale of 1 to 10, this book is about a 3 or 4 and Campbell is a 9. But reading Campbell also takes more time and effort.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Decent, January 8, 2006

By 

Sarah A. Werning (Berkeley, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: MP: Life with bound-in OLC card (Hardcover)

This book is not nearly as comprehensive or thorough as Campbell's Biology, but it does do an ok job with the explanations. The book has a lot of charts that do a good job of summarizing the material, which is a feature the earlier editions of Campbell's lack. Some of the illustrations are as good as Campbell's, but I have noticed some inaccuracies in a couple of the illustrations, even though I have the fourth edition. This is not so good for Intro Students who don't know the difference yet. It also places too much emphasis on Linnean terminology (class, phylum, genus, etc), and not enough on cladistics/phylogenetics (which biologists use preferentially now).

The study guide questions at the end of each chapter aren't very good. They swing wildly in scope, with one question asking minutiae not covered very well in the preceding chapter, the next asking about broad concepts, and some big take-home points missed entirely.

There's also not many practical differences between the 4th and 5th editions. If you have to get it, buy a 4th edition and save yourself a lot of cash. If you don't have to get it, buy Campbell's Biology (5th, 6th, or 7th edition is fine) instead.

1.0 out of 5 stars Worthless, December 22, 2011

By 

Ben Musick (TEMECULA, CALIFORNIA, US) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Life (Hardcover)

I was told to get this book for college Life Science, but it ended up being absolutly pointless in the class. What a waste of two dollars.