Insulin - The Crooked Timber

A History from Thick Brown Muck to Wall Street Gold

Insulin - The Crooked Timber
Kersten T Hall
RRP:
NZ$ 61.99
Our Price:
NZ$ 49.59
Hardback
h234 x 156mm - 480pg
1 Jan 2022 UK
9780192855381
Out Of Stock
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Before the discovery of insulin, a diagnosis of Type 1 diabetes was a death sentence. One hundred years after a milestone medical discovery, ' Insulin - The Crooked Timber' tells the story of how insulin was transformed from what one clinician called ' thick brown muck' into the very first drug to be produced using genetic engineering, one which would earn the founders of the US biotech company Genentech a small fortune. Yet when Canadian doctorFrederick Banting was told in 1923 that he had won the Nobel Prize for this life-saving discovery, he was furious. For the prize had not been awarded to him alone - but jointly with a man whom he felthad no right to this honour. The human story behind this discovery is one of ongoing political and scientific controversy. Taking the reader on a fascinating journey, starting with the discovery of insulin in the 1920s though to the present day, ' Insulin - The Crooked Timber' reveals a story of monstrous egos, toxic career rivalries, and a few unsung heroes such as two little known scientists whose work on wool fibres, carried out in a fume-filled former stable, not onlyproved to be crucial in unravelling the puzzle of insulin but ushered in a revolution in biology. It was the author' s own shocking diagnosis with Type 1 diabetes that prompted him tosit down and write this book, but this story has lessons for us all about what technology can - and more importantly cannot - do for us. As the world pins its hopes on effective and lasting vaccines against Covid-19, these lessons from the story of insulin have never been more relevant.
A fascinating book by an author with excellent credentials, well written and meticulously researched. * Geoff Gill, University of Liverpool * A timely book, pulling together many interesting stories about the scientific side of insulin. * John Pickup, King' s College London School of Medicine * Reviews the events around the discovery of insulin in an original and well-documented manner. * Pierre Lefebvre, University of Liege * Written in a clear and engaging style, the book provides a fresh take on historic events and also delves into aspects that have not been adequately explored previously. * Jeffrey Friedman, Rockefeller University *
Kersten Hall graduated with an honours degree in biochemistry from St. Anne' s College, University of Oxford, and completed a PhD in gene regulation in adenoviruses before working for the School of Medicine at the University of Leeds. He then hung up his lab coat and began to write about science. His book ' The Man in the Monkeynut Coat' (OUP 2014) tells the story of pioneering physicist William Astbury whose research into wool fibres led him to make the very firststudies of the structure of DNA. The book was shortlisted for the 2015 British Society for the History of Science Dingle Prize and was featured on a list of ' Books of 2014' in The Guardian. He iscurrently a visiting fellow in the School of Philosophy, Religion and History of Science at the University of Leeds where his research concerns the history of molecular biology but after a shocking diagnosis with Type 1 diabetes ten years ago he turned to the story of insulin.
Status: Active
ISBN-13: 9780192855381
Published: 1 Jan 2022
Published In: United Kingdom
Imprint: Oxford University Press
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Format: Hardback
Height: 234mm
Width: 156mm
Pages: 480

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