Decoding Darkness: The Search for the Genetic Causes of Alzheimer's Disease

Rudolph E Tanzi, Ann B Parson

Perseus Publishing, £18.99, pp 320

ISBN 0 7382 0195 2

Rating:

Decoding Darkness is something of a heart warming tale of the early years of genetic research—a time when all you needed was a good idea, a few Petri dishes, and the tenacity to spend month after month engaged in thankless and repetitive activity: cleave, zap, blot, probe ad infinitum.

The story is a chronological account of the work that led to one of the most important early …