Overview

Ancient peoples did not know about genes, but long before the language of DNA was ever glimpsed, before microscopes were invented, before the laws of heredity were described, people could tell inheritance with certainty. A mother would run her finger down the curve of her daughter's cheek and recognize her own. Some male child was not allowed to go out with his older siblings because he had his haunted father's eyes, nose and jawline. Elder midwives knew for sure that twins ran in certain families. It had been believed long before the advent of modern science that something in the blood carried resemblance, fortune, illness and fates. We have come a very long way since then. With the realization of the substance of inheritance, DNA, our civilization has seen an explosion in a relatively recent approach to treating genetic diseases. In the face of an emergence that quickens by the year, one is provoked to wonder how we got here: how we moved from the primitive to the sophisticated; how that ""something"" the old-timers could only perceive became so evident; how we went from not knowing what DNA was to handling and manipulating such delicate material in the laboratory; how we progressed from shaking and snapping up DNA in glass tubes to erasing genetic flaws in humans. A deep reflection on the journey so far enriches our appreciation of the gift of inquiry. In this book, I take you on a journey from Mendel's garden in Brno to the modern-day laboratory; along smooth highways and bumpy roads, through graves and gardens, through moments of great triumph and times of profound setback. It is a story about how we arrived here.

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