Gene. Mukerji S.

Before the reader there are three interpenetrating biographies: the ideas of the Gene, human society during its development and the author’s family, into which this idea penetrated with the luggage of hereditary mental illness. On the pages of this epoch -making book, the Gene's concept arises in the vague guesses of Aristotle about the information nature of heredity and in the representations of Paracelsus about homunculi, is woven into the images of people who created genetics in the XIX - XX centuries, is involved in eugenic projects and evolves in the technology of editing genomes. Observing the influence of genes on cellular and human destinies as a scientist and a doctor whose own family is a hereditary ailment, Mukerji impregnates the scientific story of the drama of people with genetic diseases and means the ethical challenges that we encountered, having learned to “read” and “write” in the DNA language.