Moalem, Sharon

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Moalem, Sharon

PERSONAL:

Education: University of Toronto, Ph.D.

ADDRESSES:

Home—New York, NY. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, NY, medical student, researcher.

WRITINGS:

(With Jonathan Prince) Survival of the Sickest: A Medical Maverick Discovers Why We Need Disease, William Morrow (New York, NY), 2007.

ADAPTATIONS:

Survival of the Sickest was adapted for audio (six CDs), read by Eric Conger, Harper Audio, 2007.

SIDELIGHTS:

When Sharon Moalem's first book was published, he was completing his medical training at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York. Moalem had previously earned his doctorate in neurogenetics and evolutionary medicine from the University of Toronto. In Survival of the Sickest: A Medical Maverick Discovers Why We Need Disease, written with Jonathan Prince, a speechwriter during the Clinton administration, Moalem explains how he has concluded from his research that sickness can sometimes also be a cure. Booklist reviewer Donna Chavez commented: "Fortunately for readers … fun with words, genes, and ideas is part of the deal."

Moalem notes, for example, that people with a genetic tendency toward sickle cell anemia have increased resistance to malaria. He contends that diabetes may have protected humans during the ice age, since the extra blood sugar that results from frequent urination also lowers the freezing temperature. This condition is compared to the wood frog that freezes solid in water and thaws in spring to continue life, all because its sugary blood protects it much as antifreeze protects an automobile. Darker skinned people who originated in geographic areas that experience bright sunlight carry genes for increased cholesterol, which may be why blacks suffer from higher incidences of heart disease.

Topics include noncoding DNA and host manipulation. Moalem studies various plants and animals that have evolved to adapt to change, including climate change, and suggests that we should rely less on drugs and more on gene manipulation to overcome parasitic illnesses. He also sees this science as a possible way to fight cancers.

Moalem suggests that the hereditary disease hemochromatosis, the accumulation of high levels of iron in the human body that is fatal if untreated, may have protected those afflicted with the bubonic plague so that they lived longer than other plague victims. He investigates favism, a hereditary intolerance of fava beans, tracing its history and projecting why the disease is still with us. He explains "jumping genes" that can rearrange themselves and gene expression, genes that can switch off and on depending on the environment. He cautions, however, that human genes are "engaged in a vast and complex dance that makes us who we are. We need to be awfully careful when we start to change the choreography, especially given our current lack of precision. When you try to move one dancer with a bulldozer, you're pretty darn certain to scoop up more than one Rockette." Although some scientists have the goal of designing genetically perfect babies, the book explains why this is not a good idea, considering that generations adapt to changing environments.

Many Asians are uniquely affected by alcohol because of the way in which their ancestors purified water. As populations grew worldwide, Europeans tended to rely on fermentation, while Asians boiled their water in order to make tea. Europeans developed the ability to detoxify alcohol, while Asians tended not to. Consequently, many now have a genetic variation that causes them to flush bright red upon drinking a small amount of alcohol. Heart rate increases, and other symptoms of overconsumption, including hangover, intensify, thus leading many of those affected to abstain entirely.

Moalem contemplates the aging process and relates that his research has revealed a genetic association for familial Alzheimer's disease. Hilary Williamson wrote in a review for the BookLoons Web site: "Complicated—but fascinating—stuff. And it gets even more so with methylation, a process in which a compound binds to a gene and changes the effect of that gene without changing DNA. This is part of a young discipline called epigenetics." This discipline studies how children can inherit and exhibit new traits from their mother and father without change taking place in the underlying DNA. These theories suggest that an understanding of this process will have health benefits, but also that there could be unforeseen consequences. A Kirkus Reviews contributor who called the book a "lively and enthusiastic treatise," noted: "The final chapters report research suggesting that environmental events in early pregnancy may have far-reaching effects on offspring." Williamson noted: "There's also a nice connection between the aquatic ape and human birthing methods." "The authors advocate for continuing to ask the questions that bring new insights into ‘the miracle of evolution,’ which is all around us, ‘changing as we go,’" concluded Williamson.

In reviewing the book for the Friendly Atheist Web site, Hemant Mehta wrote that it "is easy to read because Moalem strives to make a metaphor out of every concept he talks about, or he connects them to something cultural. Difficult biological concepts become much easier to digest, even if they do become overly simplified. It's as if the whole world is engaged in an intricate, multilevel dance, where we're all partners, sometimes leading, sometimes following, but always affecting one another's movements—a global, evolutionary Macarena." In reviewing Survival of the Sickest in CMAJ: Canadian Medical Association Journal, Ann Loewen wrote: "I have great respect for those who can impart knowledge, connect it to how our lives are lived and do it with an infectious enthusiasm…. Sharon Moalem is such an educator."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Moalem, Sharon, with Jonathan Prince, Survival of the Sickest: A Medical Maverick Discovers Why We Need Disease, William Morrow (New York, NY), 2007.