Author:
Ball, Philip, 1962- author.
ImprintChicago : The University of Chicago Press, 2019.
Descriptionxi, 372 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm
Note:Introduction: My brain in a dish -- Chapter 1. Pieces of life : Cells past and present -- Chapter 2. What love has to do with it : Growing humans the old-fashioned way -- First Interlude. The human superorganism : How cells became communities -- Chapter 3. Immortal flesh : How tissues were grown outside the body -- Second Interlude. Heroes and villains : The microbiome, immunity and cancer -- Chapter 4. Twisting fate : How to reprogramme a cell -- Chapter 5. The spare parts factory : Making tissues and organs from reprogrammed cells -- Chapter 6. Flesh of my flesh : Questioning the future of sex and reproduction -- Chapter 7. Hideous progeny? The futures of growing humans -- Third Interlude. Philosophy of the lonely mind : Can a brain exist in a dish? -- Chapter 8. Return of the meatware : Coming to terms with our fleshy selves.
Bibliography Note:Includes bibliographical references (pages 341-354) and index.
Note:In his most mind-bending book yet, Ball makes that disconcerting question the focus of a tour through what scientists can now do in cell biology and tissue culture. He shows how these technologies could lead to tailor-made replacement organs for when ours fail, to new medical advances for repairing damage and assisting conception, and to new ways of growing a human. For example, it might prove possible to turn skin cells not into neurons but into eggs and sperm, or even to turn oneself into the constituent cells of embryos. Such methods would also create new options for gene editing, with all the attendant moral dilemmas. Ball argues that such advances can therefore never be about just the science, because they come already surrounded by a host of social narratives, preconceptions, and prejudices. But beyond even that, these developments raise questions about identity and self, birth and death, and force us to ask how mutable the human body really is - and what forms it might take in years to come.
