The Language of Life

"His groundbreaking work has changed the very ways we consider our health and examine disease." —Barack Obama

From Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institute of Health, 2007 recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and 15-year head of the Human Genome Project, comes one of the most important medical books of the year: The Language of Life. With accessible, insightful prose, Dr. Collins describes the medical, scientific, and genetic revolution that is currently unlocking the secrets of "personalized medicine," and offers practical advice on how to utilize these discoveries for you and your family's current and future health and well-being. In the words of Dr. Jerome Groopman (author of How Doctors Think), The Language of Life "sets out hope without hype, and will enrich the mind and uplift the heart."


"The future of customized medicine is in your DNA; don't wait until you are sick to learn why." —Dr. Mehmet Oz, author of You: The Owner's Manual

"Man's knowledge of man is undergoing the greatest revolution since Leonardo, and Francis Collins is at the leading edge of it." —Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Neurosurgeon at Emory University and Chief Medical Correspondent for CNN


"Collins presents cutting-edge science for lay readers who want to take control of their medical lives." —Publishers Weekly, starred review


"Collins combines uplifting cases of direly afflicted people who benefited from knowledge gained by genetic screening, with exhortation of the reader to learn about and take advantage of existing and developing techniques of genetic screening." —Booklist