Awards

• Nominated for BSLS Book Prize 2016
• Nominated for Zócalo Public Square Book Prize 2017

Overview

"Nearly four decades ago Richard Dawkins published The Selfish Gene, famously reducing humans to ""survival machines"" whose sole purpose was to preserve ""the selfish molecules known as genes."" How these selfish genes work together to construct the organism, however, remained a mystery. Standing atop a wealth of new research, The Society of Genes now provides a vision of how genes cooperate and compete in the struggle for life. Pioneers in the nascent field of systems biology, Itai Yanai and Martin Lercher present a compelling new framework to understand how the human genome evolved and why understanding the interactions among our genes shifts the basic paradigm of modern biology. Contrary to what Dawkins's popular metaphor seems to imply, the genome is not made of individual genes that focus solely on their own survival. Instead, our genomes comprise a society of genes which, like human societies, is composed of members that form alliances and rivalries. In language accessible to lay readers, The Society of Genes uncovers genetic strategies of cooperation and competition at biological scales ranging from individual cells to entire species. It captures the way the genome works in cancer cells and Neanderthals, in sexual reproduction and the origin of life, always underscoring one critical point: that only by putting the interactions among genes at center stage can we appreciate the logic of life."

Full Product Details

9780674425026

Table of Contents

Reviews

Written by two of the smartest young thinkers in their fields, The Society of Genes is an absorbing, thought-provoking exploration of the intersection of genetics, evolutionary biology, and society.--Eric Lander, Professor of Biology at MIT and founding director of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard

If you re looking for a what s hot in genetics in 2016, this book wouldn t be a bad place to start. It covers a huge number of topics from the basics of genetics to genome editing, antimicrobial resistance and the functions of junk DNA We need books like this.--Simon Hazelwood-Smith BioNews (04/18/2016)

Well worth the interested reader's attention.--M. Taylor Choice (01/01/2017)

Author Information

Itai Yanai is Associate Professor of Biology at the Technion–Israel Institute of Technology and a Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies at Harvard University. Martin Lercher is Professor of Bioinformatics at Heinrich Heine University, Düsseldorf.

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