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Gene Machine The Race to Decipher the Secrets of the Ribosome
Venki Ramakrishnan Basic Books, first US edition, 2018 ISBN: 9780465093366 |
Accolades for this book include "witty", "enthralling", "exhilarating" and "exciting", but I will have to politely disagree here. It is true that this is a very readable account of the last four decades of research elucidating the inner workings of the ribosome, but I would not say that the prose or style is particularly engaging. This is simply a bland historical and autobiographical account of how the ribosome was fully understood at the turn of the 21st century. But the story itself can be somewhat dull to non-ribosome specialists and non-crystallographers, especially when considering that you will meet dozens of people who are hard to keep track of if you don't belong to these fields. It is also a shame that the earlier history of ribosome research is not included, as it would have added more heft to this story as well as make it a great primer to ribosome biology. But perhaps I am being greedy here as to be fair this is an eyewitness account rather than a comprehensive history.
All that said, I still think there is immense value in this book, because at the very least we get a detailed outline of how research scientists, post doctoral fellows and graduate students all around the world struggled but ultimately succeeded in elucidating the atomic structure of a full ribosome. Moreover, we see the story unfold through the eyes of one of the pioneers (the author), which is perhaps the best way to learn history. Additionally, this book also allows young scientists and students to see the politics of doing science, with all of its warts, and knowing how to play this "game" is a critical skill for succeeding as a researcher.
