Mapping Fate: A Memoir of Family, Risk, and Genetic ResearchIn Mapping Fate, Alice Wexler tells the story of a family at risk for a hereditary, incurable, fatal disorder: Huntington's disease, once called Huntington's chorea. That her mother died of the disease, that her own chance of inheriting it was fifty-fifty, that her sister and father directed much of the extraordinary biomedical research to find the gene and a cure, make Wexler's story both astonishingly intimate and scientifically compelling. Alice Wexler's graceful and eloquent account goes beyond the specifics of Huntington's disease to explore the dynamics of family secrets, of living at risk, and the drama and limits of biomedical research. Mapping Fate will be a touchstone for anyone with questions about genetic illness and the possibilites and perils of genetic testing. |
Contents
THE BODY IN QUESTION | 1 |
After Woods Hole | 5 |
Silent Subjects | 22 |
Dreaming Chorea | 66 |
CHOREA STORIES | 83 |
Nedda and Hope | 85 |
Tainted by Smog and Hollywood | 103 |
The Test for HDness | 125 |
MAPS FOR MISREADING | 163 |
Leaping Gazellelike Through the Genome | 165 |
Tristes Tropiques | 182 |
G8 | 210 |
GENETIC DESTINATIONS | 241 |
Repeat Sequences | 258 |
Notes | 277 |
A Note on Sources | 298 |
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Common terms and phrases
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