The Genome Odyssey

For someone who works with genomes, mostly plants and worms, this book provides a lot of insight into what we can learn from the journey of the human genome. Dr. Euan Ashley is a great storyteller, which makes the book easy to read and digest. I loved how he is able to turn complex technologies into metaphors that make them understandable.

Most importantly, it was a great pleasure to read the stories of his patients and their incredible resilience and patience in battling rare diseases. Being in hospital as a patient can be very dehumanising. The constant probing for IV injections, machines beeping everywhere and chaos all around is uncomfortable and scary. I can only imagine what it is like for patients who are uncertain about their diagnosis.

I am hopeful that developments in human genomics will be a holy grail for diagnosing rare diseases and treating them.