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It Takes a Genome: How a Clash Between Our Genes and Modern Life Is Making Us Sick

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Barack Obama introduced to the U.S. Senate "The Genomics and Personalized Medicine Act of 2006". Greg Gibson, author of "It Takes a Genome", advises us that the title of this Act alone is indicative of how future medicine will have have to confront the dynamic nature of disease. "Dynamic" is the optimum word here since it tears down the traditionally static portraiture that we've been given of disease and the genome. Gibson, with this book seeks to challenge the idea that there is a "gene for this disease" and a "gene for that disease", and replacing it with the more accurate view of a variety of genes that are networked and talking to each other. Gibson's next mission is to show how changes in our environment and our lifestyles disrupts how this network functions.

Perhaps the greatest virtue of this book is how balanced Gibson approaches the idea of a genome that conflicts with modernity. I must admit, I picked up the book expecting (and, admittedly, welcoming) a certain amount of propaganda about how civilization is antagonizing our health. I didn't get it, and this is to the credit of the author. He is far more realistic, neither condemning nor condoning our contemporary lifestyles, but instead hoping to underscore the fact that, yes, it is largely the way we live that is determining the exacerbation of certain diseases. He presents his case through the course of eight chapters, covering Breast cancer, diabetes, hygiene, AIDS, depression and Alzheimer's. Most of our lifestyle habits that Gibson itemizes are things we've already heard before and have had a finger waved at us - smoking, poor diet, lack of exercise etc. Instead of hammering us over the head of things we already know, he brings his attention to the genetic side of these equations, demonstrating first how the delicate genome can break down all on its own without our interference and next highlighting how this probability of this break down is increased by our behavioral and environmental input. Simply put, and to use Gibson's own words, "Genes alone cannot cause an epidemic; there must be some environmental agent."

The next virtue is the simplicity of Gibson's narrative. He leans heavily on analogies to help us understand what hormones, proteins and enzymes do what in the body. For instance, his most concise analogy tell us that "Basically three types of events can happen in the earliest stages of turning normal cells into cancerous ones: The brakes can fail, the accelerator pedal can get stuck to the floor, and the mechanics can go out of business." He compares serotonin to email, and some broad stroke therapeutic treatments as "taking a sledgehammer to dividing cells." Such analogies make it easier for newcomers to the topic to contextualize the nature of what is happening inside their bodies, to their bodies and why.

Lastly, the book is a mere 150 pages which means that Gibson doesn't belabor any of his topics. It also means that I was able to complete the book in less than a week's time. I consider such brevity to be an act of mercy since surely Gibson expects that we will corroborate his take on the genome with other longer and less digestible books.

With Obama now in office and the leash on science and technology having been lessened, the next 4 to 8 years will see an increase in headlines on breakthroughs for many of the epidemics that plague the civilized world. It also means that there will be an increase of journalism rife with headlines about "cancer genes", "obesity genes" etc. "It Takes a Genome", which holds a 2009 copyright date, will be a good reference book for counterbalancing facts with factoids and an instrument to help us temper our enthusiasm for any panacean promises by a pharmaceutical future that still doesn't fully understand the dynamic genome.

This book has come as quite a disappointment to me. I am a avid reader of science books. I love genetics especially. I am a big fan of Richard Dawkins and Matt Ridley. I haven't learnt anything new by reading It Takes a Genome. If you are already familiar with personal genomics such as 23andMe or deCODEme, you won't learn anything either. The book is very short (under 150 pages) and yet manages to be tedious, repetitive and poorly informative at the same time.

This book is clearly geared towards people who have absolutely no prior knowledge of genetics. Gibson's tone give the impression that he is addressing a bunch of teenagers. This may be because he does teach teenagers at the North Carolina State University. He keeps re-explaining basic concepts as if he was holding a lecture in front of an audience that needed to be reminded of what had been said a few minutes ago. His use of celebrities as examples and fast food for metaphors reinforce this impression that the book was written for adolescents. Gibson does not disguise his antipathy towards Richard Dawkins, insisting several times from the preface onwards that "genes are unselfish", and as if it was not clear enough find the need to explain in the notes at the end of the book that he chose the expression in reaction to Dawkins's book The Selfish Gene (which, incidentally, is a far more interesting read, even 30 years after its publication).

Even for those with very little knowledge of genetics, I wouldn't recommend this book. It is badly written and only concentrate on a few diseases. One of them, AIDS, has obviously no connection with the book's title, as it is not a genetic disease at all and is not caused by the modern way of life ! Yet there is a full chapter (out of 9) dedicated to it. If you want a good introduction to genetics and genetic diseases, go for Matt Ridley's Genome.

All this book tells you is there is still a whole lot we don't know about genetics, well no kiddin Sherlock... Do not recommend getting this.

The first chapter of this book, The Adolescent Genome, is printed at the end of The Root of Thought and has such a similar pretentious-and-at-the-same-time-informal style that it might have been written by the same author. The odd and often imprecise language effectively discouraged me from wanting to read any more of it. Here are some examples:
"Of all the paradoxes in the world, surly one of the most absurd is that the very same genome that gives us life inevitably also takes it away."
"Debating whether humanity is more closely realized in the form of Colin Powell or Tiger Woods, Jennifer Lopez or Hillary Clinton, we would no doubt agree to disagree on what attributes are desirable in a person."
"Each gene comes in different flavors -- I mean, alleles -- that have cropped up during the evolution of the species. These different alleles have their origin in the process of mutation, which is basically what happens to genes when you leave them out in the sun or exposed to poisons."
"Mutations are ultimately the source of all things good, but for the most part are harmful, tending to break genes."
"Or perhaps at some earlier phase of human life they were the right gene in the right place at the right time. It is easy to get carried away with devising clever stories along these lines. Some, particularly in the domain of psychology, are even tempted to postulate that promoting disease is in itself advantageous to the selfish genes, but it really stretches the imagination to suppose that there is some benefit to having genes that make us suicidal. We won't go down that road. Rarely is it necessary anyway."

This book is very general and does not have any groundbreaking information. A good read for a non-scientist-waste of time for scientifically literate.