“The age of biological control by the scientists who cloned Dolly.”
This book follows the story of the team who made Dolly, the sheep. From the early attempts, through a series of incorrect theories about what was and was not possible, to their eventual understanding of the necessary nuclear transfer process and finally the creation of Dolly and the media attention surrounding her.
The book is slightly oddly written, it seems like it was mostly written by an outsider following interviews with the team, and so it has a slightly weird structure. The timeline is also a little confused at times, with information from the future leaking into the ‘now’ in the chronology of the book.
Scientific detail is reasonably well explained – this is not a subject I know anything about but I feel I understand what they were doing, even if I don’t know the details of *how*. Dry reading, for sure, but not difficult going considering the complexity of the subject. I feel better equiped to understand genetic engineering debates now, whether this is worth reading depends upon your interests, if, like me, you’re from a scientific background, with an interest but no knowlege in genetics its a good starting point. Doubtless there are more educational books out there, but this has an interesting human interaction side too.
It leaves a number of open questions, questions that will be answered over the coming years. The Genesis of a new era in human evolution, an apt title.