by Lasse Folkersen (Author), Pak-Chung Sham (Foreword)
Are you considering to test your own DNA? Do you want to learn more about your health and ancestry? Understand your DNA — A Guide
is about what you can use genetics for. For a few hundred dollars, you
can now scan your own genes. Millions of people all over the world have
already done so. Everyone wants to see what they can get to know about
themselves, and the market growing rapidly. But what does it require
from you? And what can you really use a DNA test for? Understand your DNA — A Guide
helps you put the plots and charts of consumer genetics into
perspective and enables you to figure out what's up and down in the
media headlines. The book is also a key input for today's debate about
what we as a society can and want to do with medical genetics. Genetics
will play a growing role in the future. Understand your DNA — A Guide
is an easy-to-read and necessary guide to that future. The book is
provided with a foreword by Professor Sham Pak-Chung of Hong Kong
University.
While there are many books about genetics, they
typically take the perspective of a scientist wanting to understand the
molecular levels. At the same time, direct-to-consumer genetics is a
booming market, with millions of people already tested. Very little has
been published that will guide them for real, because the need here is
more focused on medical and practical understanding, than focussed on
molecules.
This book therefore aims to hit that vacant spot in the
market. It's a walk-through of all concepts that are necessary to
understand in your own analysis. Meanwhile, it is also limited in scope
to only those concepts — thus distinguishing it from broader works.
The
book is appropriate for the readerships in modern multi-ethnic
metropolises because it mixes European and Asian examples, both from the
collaboration between the author from Europe and the foreword-writer,
Prof. Pak Sham of Hong Kong University. But also, because many of the
examples in the book concerns differences and similarities between Asian
and European ethnicities, something the author believes is a trend in
time.
