Synopsis: In Genes and Common Diseases we learn that Genetics has transformed how medicine understands disease, but the field is still finding the edges of what it can actually explain. Alan Wright and Nicholas Hastie bring together leading researchers to map that terrain honestly, examining both the breakthroughs and the limits of a genetic approach to common illness.
Medical genetics spent decades focused on rare, single-gene disorders, the kind with a clean, traceable cause. This book tracks the field’s harder, messier pivot toward common diseases, the ones shaped by a tangle of genetic and environmental factors rather than one faulty gene.
Edited by Alan Wright and Nicholas Hastie, both based at the MRC Human Genetics Unit in Edinburgh, it pulls together research across a wide range of common conditions, with particular attention to areas like obesity, where genetic and lifestyle factors are notoriously difficult to separate.
What distinguishes this from a typical genetics textbook is its willingness to be self-critical. Rather than presenting genetic medicine as a solved problem waiting to be applied, the editors and contributors examine where current genetic approaches genuinely explain disease risk, and where the science still falls short of clinical usefulness. That honesty makes it a useful corrective for anyone who’s absorbed an overly tidy picture of what genetic testing and research can currently deliver.
Published by Cambridge University Press and now a recognized reference in the field, this book works as both a teaching text for advanced students and a grounding resource for clinicians trying to separate genuine genetic insight from overstated promise.
- Target audience: Medical students, clinicians, genetic researchers, and advanced students in human genetics.
Buy the Genes and Common Diseases – Genetics in Modern Medicine Book Now
- Title: Genes and Common Diseases: Genetics in Modern Medicine
- Editors: Alan Wright and Nicholas Hastie (both of the MRC Human Genetics Unit, Edinburgh)
- Publisher: Cambridge University Press
- Edition: 1st Edition
- Publication date: August 2, 2007
- Format: Paperback
- ISBN-13: 9780521541008 · ISBN-10: 052154100X
- Pages: 560 pages
- Genre: Medical genetics / Academic reference
- Condition: Very Good
- Stock: In Stock
- Price: KES1200
- Content confirmed: Reviews the genetic and environmental mechanisms underlying common diseases, with particular emphasis on conditions such as obesity. Takes a self-critical look at what genetic approaches can and cannot currently achieve in clinical medicine.
You may also like other nursing and medical books like…
- HESI Comprehensive Review for the NCLEX-RN Examination – 6th Edition
- Nursing Today: Transitions and Trends – 10th Edition
