Ahead of the Curve
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€33.99
A01=Shane Crotty
aids vaccine
Author_Shane Crotty
biographical
biography
caltech
career
Category=DNB
Category=MBX
college
controversial
controversy
cultural history
cultural studies
culture
dna
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
famous scientist
genetic engineering
growing up
life story
mit
molecular biology
nobel prize
political
politics
rockefeller
science
scientific research
scientist
true story
university
vaccine
vietnam war
Product details
- ISBN 9780520239043
- Weight: 408g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 01 Jun 2003
- Publisher: University of California Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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Shane Crotty's biography of David Baltimore details the life and work of one of the most brilliant, powerful, and controversial scientists of our time. Although only in his early sixties, Baltimore has made major discoveries in molecular biology, established the prestigious Whitehead Institute at MIT, been president of Rockefeller University, won the Nobel Prize, and been vilified by detractors in one of the most scandalous and protracted investigations of scientific fraud ever. He is now president of Caltech and a leader in the search for an AIDS vaccine. Crotty not only tells the compelling story of this larger-than-life figure, he also treats the reader to a lucid account of the amazing revolution that has occurred in biology during the past forty years. Basing his narrative on many personal interviews, Crotty recounts the milestones of Baltimore's career: completing his Ph.D. at Rockefeller University in eighteen months, participating in the anti - Vietnam War movement, winning a Nobel Prize at age thirty-seven for the co discovery of reverse transcriptase, and co-organizing the recombinant DNA/genetic engineering moratorium.
Along the way, readers learn what viruses are and what they do, what cancer is and how it happens, the complexities of the AIDS problem, how genetic engineering works, and why making a vaccine is a complicated process. And, as Crotty considers Baltimore's public life, he retells the famous scientific fraud saga and Baltimore's vindication after a decade of character assassination. Crotty possesses the alchemical skill of converting technical scientific history into entertaining prose as he conveys Baltimore's huge ambitions, intensity, scientific genius, attitude toward science and politics, and Baltimore's own view about what happened in the 'Baltimore Affair'. Ahead of the Curve shows why with his complex personality, keen involvement in public issues, and wide-ranging interests David Baltimore has not only shaped the face of American science as we know it today, but has also become a presence in our culture.
Shane Crotty is a molecular biologist in the Emory University School of Medicine, where he studies viruses and works to develop new vaccines.
