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His Brother's Keeper
- One Family's Journey to the Edge of Medicine
- Narrated by: Victor Bevine
- Length: 11 hrs and 27 mins
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His Brother's Keeper
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Publisher's Summary
Stephen Heywood was 29 years old when he learned that he was dying of ALS - Lou Gehrig's disease. Almost overnight, his older brother, Jamie, turned himself into a genetic engineer in a quixotic race to cure the incurable. His Brother's Keeper is a powerful account of their story, as they travel together to the edge of medicine. The book brings home for all of us the hopes and fears of the new biology.
In this dramatic and suspenseful narrative, Jonathan Weiner gives us a remarkable portrait of science and medicine today. We learn about gene therapy, stem cells, brain vaccines, and other novel treatments for such nerve-death diseases as ALS, Alzheimer's, and Parkinson's - diseases that afflict millions, and touch the lives of many more. "The Heywoods' story taught me many things about the nature of healing in the new millennium," Weiner writes. "They also taught me about what has not changed since the time of the ancients and may never change as long as there are human beings - about what Lucretius calls 'the ever-living wound of love".
What the critics say
- 100 Notable Books, The New York Times
- 10 Best Nonfiction of the Year, Entertainment Weekly
- Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist
"Weiner has a master's eye for the telling detail and a spare, often poetic style. His terse recounting of the seminal advances and setbacks in genetic engineering in the late 1990s provides the scientific counterpoint to the Heywood family drama." (The Washington Post)