Medical Genetics

Luke Abramson, a brilliant cellular biologist who is battling lung cancer, has one joy in life: his 10-year-old granddaughter, Angela. When Angela is diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor and given less than six months to live, Luke wants to try a new enzyme, Mortality Factor 4 (MORF4), that he believes will kill Angela's tumor. However, the hospital bureaucracy won't let him do it because MORF4 has not yet been approved by the FDA. Knowing Angela will die before he can get the treatment approved, Luke abducts her from the hospital with plans to take her to a private research laboratory in Oregon.

In this landmark medical narrative, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists Mark Johnson and Kathleen Gallagher chronicle the story of Nic Volker, the Wisconsin boy at the center of a daring breakthrough in medicine - a complete gene sequencing to discover the cure for an otherwise undiagnosable illness.

A wealthy businessman, known by most as Joe Kettleman, narrowly survives an attempt on his life. While recovering from surgery to remove a bullet, imaging reveals a lethal tumor. Unwilling to spend his final days under chemical bombardment, he returns to a remote cabin in New Mexico to die in peace. But when death takes its time and Joe outlives his supplies, he's forced to take a perilous journey through the deserts of the Bisti Badlands. Two days into what was supposed to be a five day trek, Joe comes across a town.

The discovery and excavation of a 35,000 year old city hidden deep within the Transantarctic Mountains releases a pandemic across the globe. Within a few weeks, five million are dead and another 10 million are about to die. Billions more are certain to die within weeks. But what kind of disease only affects members of a certain ethnic group? Some world leaders are convinced this is a genetic bioweapon, developed and deployed against them for the sole purpose of ethnic cleansing.

Grace Lord, combat surgeon in training, has just landed her dream job aboard a medical space station. Attacked by a powerful, gorilla-enhanced combat soldier the moment she steps onto the station, she quickly realizes this assignment will be far from typical. She treats the wounded space marines of the Conglomerate under the watchful eyes of stalking androids who all look alike and a mentor with a serious case of megalomania. Meeting a drop-dead gorgeous psychiatrist almost makes it worth it, until the station docks with a mysterious vessel.

A homeland security agent is found dead. Shocking evidence reveals the cause of death is the simultaneous collapse of the man's blood vessels. When a second body sharing the same gruesome symptoms is found, the hunt is on for a frightening new kind of killer. A vicious assault on his leading genetics researcher puts Dr. Ronni Saar, the CEO of Double N, and his friend Gadi, a former military police investigator, on the trail of a sophisticated killer. The deeper Gadi digs, and the more he learns, the more dangerous the terrain becomes.

Already technology enables parents to select some genetic traits for their children, and soon it will be possible to begin to shape ourselves as a species. Countering loud cries of alarm, bioethics expert Ronald Green explains why our fears about genetic engineering are overblown and how we can move forward responsibly to create a better future.

More mockery. More mayhem. More murder. Your favorite homicidal forensic pathologist Dr. Beckett Campbell is back! And this time, it appears that he might have someone on his side, someone who understands him, someone who has his back no matter what. But there is no such thing as a free lunch, nor are there drugs without side-effects. Before he can wrap his head around what, exactly, he's gotten into, Beckett finds himself tangled in a messy web of lies, deceit, and most importantly of all, relationship troubles.

A promise is a promise, even if it's deadly. How far would you go to save a loved one? Tycoon Maxwell Sutherland knows how far he would, and he's hell-bent on letting nothing stop him. Medical advancements were too slow for him to save his wife, but he will stop at nothing to see that his daughter does not suffer the same fate. His daughter's inherited illness moves rapidly to snuff her life out, but Maxwell Sutherland has an unimaginable plan.

When Alan learns that Michelle is working with a small group to go against the big pharmaceutical company because of a specific drug, Alan is intrigued. For this reason, Alan takes a job offer from Michelle's boss. Not only does he get paid well, he also gets to work with Michelle and help save the world from a dangerous drug. The more Alan uncovers, though, the more questions he has about what's going on and how much time he has.

The baby growing inside him has two fathers, and it's killing him. Genetic engineering made it possible for Adam Khan to bear and birth his biological child, but it never prepared him to carry the weight of the world. The product of a religious family, Adam hid his true self. Unfortunately, the object of his affection cares only for himself. Desperate to be loved, he turns to the morally bankrupt Chimera Collaborative, run by the sinister Dr. Shen Duan. Will the pursuit of acceptance and an idyllic life be a matter of life and death?

With trusted expertise from Mayo Clinic, the Edge of Medicine series sets out to inspire and educate the next generation of young scientists by highlighting the medical breakthroughs of a diverse range of scientists and researchers. From the discovery of the double helix to mapping the human genome, this exploration of scientific inquiry celebrates the greatest developments to date in genetics. Get to know the physicians, scientists, and other researchers responsible for these breakthroughs in medicine, and explore the ups, the downs, and the eureka moments that are science in action.