AshehougAgency

Your Unique Heredity

The mapping of the human hereditary material has paved the road for a whole new understanding of biology, health and sickness. This interesting and engaging book describes the ways in which this new insight is about to change the medical approach to illness. Whereas before, doctors were trained to treat all patients suffering from a specific disease in one particular way, often according to the try-and-fail method, today a new medical reality is gradually approaching, with the focus placed on individually adjusted treatment according to what is known about each person’s genetic constitution.

Dag Undlien is Professor at the Institute for Medical Genetics at Ullevål University Hospital. With this book, he shows, in a popularised way, what genes and genetics are, and what knowledge about this field will mean to each and every one of us in a health perspective.

Praise for "Your Unique Heredity":

“Genetics and health is a field in rapid development. The author has, in an outstanding manner, managed to convey knowledge about complex medical mechanisms in a popular and convincing way. The book provides a good account of the history of modern genetics, from the discovery of the structure of the DNA-molecule in 1953, via a description of genetic variation and the relationship between heredity and environment, and through to today’s possibilities of individually adjusted treatment. The author presents an exciting account of what we today know about the influence of genes and of future possibilities. Undlien proves that he is a thorough researcher with first-class storytelling skills.” (The jury's grounds for the Brage Prize nomination)

"I hope he will write more books because he manages to make huge and complicated material become comprehensible" (Aftenbladet)

First published: 2005, Aschehoug Non-Fiction

Dag Undlien: Biography and bibliography