MSUM
LibraryMSUM
Library
honors the 2003
promotion/tenure of
Ellen
Brisch
Biology
Gerhart,
John. Cells, Embryos and
Evolution. Malden: Blackwell
Publishing, 1997.
Dr.
Brisch chose this book because:
“I chose Cells, Embryos and
Evolution for several reasons. First, the authors have been very
inspiring "dogma smashers" in their fields. They have initiated
completely new lines of research and mentored the now top researchers in their
fields. I have been lucky to be an "academic grandchild" of one
of the authors, Marc Kirshner, and have followed both of their contributions to
the field avidly throughout my scientific career. Second, the approach to
the book blends three previously separate scientific disciplines--Cell Biology,
Developmental Biology and Evolution. Great things in science happen when
people look outside of their back yards, and a book like this allows narrowly
trained scientists to broaden their horizons and make "eurekas" of
their own. Finally, in a lecture given by one of my previous instructors,
Andrew Murray--Marc Kirchner's "academic son", Andrew describes
that:
Nothing biologically makes sense unless
Basically
this means that as we push forward into human genome studies and biomedical
engineering we need to keep the basic principles of evolution in the forefront
of our data interpretations -- how similar are individuals? How do subtle
changes in the DNA code produce such profound differences? How do we treat
different individuals that have the same disease? Where do diseases come
from? How similar are organisms? How similar are proteins? How
do these proteins function in similar yet highly tailored ways? The list
of questions goes on and on and this book has raised more questions for me than
it has answered, truly a book to keep me on my toes, fresh and sharp for years
and years to come. I hope others will read this and have burning questions
to be answered and help contribute to the exploding fields of Cell Biology,
Developmental Biology and Evolution.”