
One in a Billion
The Story of Nic Volker and the Dawn of Genomic Medicine
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Buy for $14.61
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Jonathan Yen
About this listen
In this landmark medical narrative, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists Mark Johnson and Kathleen Gallagher chronicle the story of Nic Volker, the Wisconsin boy at the center of a daring breakthrough in medicine - a complete gene sequencing to discover the cure for an otherwise undiagnosable illness.
At just two years old, Nic experiences a searing pain that signals the awakening of a new and deadly disease. For years, through false starts and failed cures, he holds on to life, buoyed up by his mother's fierce drive to get him the care he needs. But when even the world's experts are stumped by Nic's illness, his doctors come up with a radical, long-shot plan: a step into the unknown.
The next major scientific frontier, following the completion of the Human Genome Project, was to figure out how to use our new knowledge to save lives - to bring genomic or personalized medicine into reality. It's a quest that is undertaken by researchers around the world. But it is only when geneticist Howard Jacob hears about young Nic that the finish line finally comes into sight: It's no longer a race to make history. It's a race to save this boy's life.
©2016 Mark Johnson and Kathleen Gallagher (P)2016 TantorListeners also enjoyed...
-
The Genome Odyssey
- Medical Mysteries and the Incredible Quest to Solve Them
- By: Dr. Euan Angus Ashley
- Narrated by: Dr. Euan Angus Ashley
- Length: 10 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Genome Odyssey, Dr. Euan Ashley, Stanford professor of medicine and genetics, brings the breakthroughs of precision medicine to vivid life through the real diagnostic journeys of his patients and the tireless efforts of his fellow doctors and scientists as they hunt to prevent, predict, and beat disease.
-
-
Interesting at times but repetitive, badly written
- By kenissur on 07-11-22
-
As Gods
- A Moral History of the Genetic Age
- By: Matthew Cobb
- Narrated by: Joe Jameson
- Length: 13 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 2018, scientists manipulated the DNA of human babies for the first time. As biologist and historian Matthew Cobb shows in As Gods, this achievement was one many scientists have feared from the start of the genetic age. Four times in the last fifty years, geneticists, frightened by their own technology, have called a temporary halt to their experiments. They ought to be frightened.
-
-
comprehensive history of genetic engineering
- By James Hanley on 05-09-25
By: Matthew Cobb
-
The Assistant
- By: Bernard Malamud
- Narrated by: Richard Davidson
- Length: 9 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Bernard Malamud's second novel, originally published in 1957, is the story of Morris Bober, a grocer in postwar Brooklyn, who "wants better" for himself and his family. First two robbers appear and hold him up; then things take a turn for the better when broken-nosed Frank Alpine becomes his assistant. But there are complications: Frank, whose reaction to Jews is ambivalent, falls in love with Helen Bober; at the same time he begins to steal from the store.
By: Bernard Malamud
-
A Crack in Creation
- Gene Editing and the Unthinkable Power to Control Evolution
- By: Jennifer A. Doudna, Samuel H. Sternberg
- Narrated by: Erin Bennett
- Length: 9 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Not since the atomic bomb has a technology so alarmed its inventors that they warned the world about its use. Not, that is, until the spring of 2015, when biologist Jennifer Doudna called for a worldwide moratorium on the use of the new gene-editing tool CRISPR - a revolutionary new technology that she helped create - to make heritable changes in human embryos.
-
-
In to the abyss we ascend, a scary future
- By Philomath on 06-17-17
By: Jennifer A. Doudna, and others
-
The Heart Healers
- The Misfits, Mavericks, and Rebels Who Created the Greatest Medical Breakthrough of Our Lives
- By: James Forrester MD
- Narrated by: Jonathan Yen
- Length: 15 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At one time heart disease was a death sentence. By the middle of the 20th century, it was killing millions, and, as with the Black Death centuries before, physicians stood helpless. Visionaries, though, had begun to make strides earlier. On September 7, 1895, Ludwig Rehn successfully sutured the heart of a living man with a knife wound to the chest for the first time.
-
-
Great review of the landmark achievements in Cardiology.
- By Trauma NP on 12-14-15
-
Being Mortal
- Medicine and What Matters in the End
- By: Atul Gawande
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff
- Length: 9 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Being Mortal, best-selling author Atul Gawande tackles the hardest challenge of his profession: how medicine can not only improve life but also the process of its ending. Medicine has triumphed in modern times, transforming birth, injury, and infectious disease from harrowing to manageable. But in the inevitable condition of aging and death, the goals of medicine seem too frequently to run counter to the interest of the human spirit.
-
-
A Walk through the Valley of the Shadow
- By George on 11-02-14
By: Atul Gawande
-
The Genome Odyssey
- Medical Mysteries and the Incredible Quest to Solve Them
- By: Dr. Euan Angus Ashley
- Narrated by: Dr. Euan Angus Ashley
- Length: 10 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Genome Odyssey, Dr. Euan Ashley, Stanford professor of medicine and genetics, brings the breakthroughs of precision medicine to vivid life through the real diagnostic journeys of his patients and the tireless efforts of his fellow doctors and scientists as they hunt to prevent, predict, and beat disease.
-
-
Interesting at times but repetitive, badly written
- By kenissur on 07-11-22
-
As Gods
- A Moral History of the Genetic Age
- By: Matthew Cobb
- Narrated by: Joe Jameson
- Length: 13 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 2018, scientists manipulated the DNA of human babies for the first time. As biologist and historian Matthew Cobb shows in As Gods, this achievement was one many scientists have feared from the start of the genetic age. Four times in the last fifty years, geneticists, frightened by their own technology, have called a temporary halt to their experiments. They ought to be frightened.
-
-
comprehensive history of genetic engineering
- By James Hanley on 05-09-25
By: Matthew Cobb
-
The Assistant
- By: Bernard Malamud
- Narrated by: Richard Davidson
- Length: 9 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Bernard Malamud's second novel, originally published in 1957, is the story of Morris Bober, a grocer in postwar Brooklyn, who "wants better" for himself and his family. First two robbers appear and hold him up; then things take a turn for the better when broken-nosed Frank Alpine becomes his assistant. But there are complications: Frank, whose reaction to Jews is ambivalent, falls in love with Helen Bober; at the same time he begins to steal from the store.
By: Bernard Malamud
-
A Crack in Creation
- Gene Editing and the Unthinkable Power to Control Evolution
- By: Jennifer A. Doudna, Samuel H. Sternberg
- Narrated by: Erin Bennett
- Length: 9 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Not since the atomic bomb has a technology so alarmed its inventors that they warned the world about its use. Not, that is, until the spring of 2015, when biologist Jennifer Doudna called for a worldwide moratorium on the use of the new gene-editing tool CRISPR - a revolutionary new technology that she helped create - to make heritable changes in human embryos.
-
-
In to the abyss we ascend, a scary future
- By Philomath on 06-17-17
By: Jennifer A. Doudna, and others
-
The Heart Healers
- The Misfits, Mavericks, and Rebels Who Created the Greatest Medical Breakthrough of Our Lives
- By: James Forrester MD
- Narrated by: Jonathan Yen
- Length: 15 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At one time heart disease was a death sentence. By the middle of the 20th century, it was killing millions, and, as with the Black Death centuries before, physicians stood helpless. Visionaries, though, had begun to make strides earlier. On September 7, 1895, Ludwig Rehn successfully sutured the heart of a living man with a knife wound to the chest for the first time.
-
-
Great review of the landmark achievements in Cardiology.
- By Trauma NP on 12-14-15
-
Being Mortal
- Medicine and What Matters in the End
- By: Atul Gawande
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff
- Length: 9 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Being Mortal, best-selling author Atul Gawande tackles the hardest challenge of his profession: how medicine can not only improve life but also the process of its ending. Medicine has triumphed in modern times, transforming birth, injury, and infectious disease from harrowing to manageable. But in the inevitable condition of aging and death, the goals of medicine seem too frequently to run counter to the interest of the human spirit.
-
-
A Walk through the Valley of the Shadow
- By George on 11-02-14
By: Atul Gawande
-
When Breath Becomes Air
- By: Paul Kalanithi, Abraham Verghese - foreword
- Narrated by: Sunil Malhotra, Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 5 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the age of thirty-six, on the verge of completing a decade’s worth of training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. One day he was a doctor treating the dying, and the next he was a patient struggling to live. And just like that, the future he and his wife had imagined evaporated.
-
-
Phenomenal book!
- By A. Potter on 01-16-16
By: Paul Kalanithi, and others
-
The Emperor of All Maladies
- A Biography of Cancer
- By: Siddhartha Mukherjee
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 22 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Emperor of All Maladies reveals the many faces of an iconic, shape-shifting disease that is the defining plague of our generation. The story of cancer is a story of human ingenuity, resilience, and perseverance but also of hubris, arrogance, paternalism, and misperception, all leveraged against a disease that, just three decades ago, was thought to be easily vanquished in an all-out "war against cancer".
-
-
Incredible
- By S.R.E. on 03-02-16
-
The Breakthrough
- Immunotherapy and the Race to Cure Cancer
- By: Charles Graeber
- Narrated by: Will Collyer, Charles Graeber
- Length: 7 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Groundbreaking, riveting, and expertly told, The Breakthrough is the story of the game-changing scientific discoveries that unleash our natural ability to recognize and defeat cancer, as told through the experiences of the patients, physicians, and cancer immunotherapy researchers who are on the front lines. This is the incredible true story of the race to find a cure, a dispatch from the life-changing world of modern oncological science, and a brave new chapter in medical history.
-
-
Surprisingly gripping
- By Kari Niles on 01-21-19
By: Charles Graeber
-
The Demon Under The Microscope
- By: Thomas Hager
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 12 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Nazis discovered it. The Allies won the war with it. It conquered diseases, changed laws, and single-handedly launched the era of antibiotics. This incredible discovery was sulfa, the first antibiotic medication. In The Demon Under the Microscope, Thomas Hager chronicles the dramatic history of the drug that shaped modern medicine.
-
-
Great Book!!!!!
- By Amazon Customer on 05-21-08
By: Thomas Hager
-
Plague
- One Scientist’s Intrepid Search for the Truth About Human Retroviruses and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Autism, and Other Diseases
- By: Kent Heckenlively, Judy Mikovits PhD
- Narrated by: Eric Jason Martin
- Length: 19 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On July 22, 2009, a special meeting was held with 24 leading scientists at the National Institutes of Health to discuss early findings that a newly discovered retrovirus was linked to chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), prostate cancer, lymphoma, and eventually neurodevelopmental disorders in children. When Dr. Judy Mikovits finished her presentation the room was silent for a moment, then one of the scientists said, "Oh my God!" The resulting investigation would be like no other in science.
-
-
Far Beyond Compelling
- By Gregory on 03-30-15
By: Kent Heckenlively, and others
-
Longshot
- The Inside Story of the Race for a COVID-19 Vaccine
- By: David Heath
- Narrated by: David Heath, Eric Jason Martin
- Length: 8 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Longshot, investigative journalist David Heath takes listeners inside the small group of scientists whose groundbreaking work was once largely dismissed but whose feat will now eclipse the importance of Jonas Salk’s polio vaccine in medical history. With never-before-reported details, Heath reveals how these scientists overcame countless obstacles to give the world an unprecedented head start when we needed a COVID-19 vaccine.
-
-
Facts.
- By Theresa D. Fellmann on 04-06-24
By: David Heath
-
The Youngest Science
- Notes of a Medicine Watcher
- By: Lewis Thomas
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 8 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this partially autobiographical work, best-selling author Lewis Thomas offers insights on subjects as wide-ranging as gender differences, how it feels to be a patient, human vs. computer intelligence, the future of cancer research, and the longevity of the planet—interspersing all with charming anecdotes about his family, his colleagues and himself.
-
-
Pure enchantment. Excellence.
- By Tamara on 06-26-16
By: Lewis Thomas
-
Tripping Over the Truth
- The Return of the Metabolic Theory of Cancer Illuminates a New and Hopeful Path to a Cure
- By: Travis Christofferson
- Narrated by: Clay Lomakayu
- Length: 9 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A masterful synchronization of history and cutting-edge science shines new light on humanity's darkest diagnosis. In the wake of the Cancer Genome Atlas project's failure to provide a legible road map to a cure for cancer, science writer Travis Christofferson illuminates a promising blend of old and new perspectives on the disease.
-
-
Non-fiction books - please include references
- By yaelb on 06-15-16
-
How Doctors Think
- By: Jerome Groopman M.D.
- Narrated by: Michael Prichard
- Length: 10 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On average, a physician will interrupt a patient describing her symptoms within 12 seconds. In that short time, many doctors decide on the likely diagnosis and best treatment. Often, decisions made this way are correct, but at crucial moments they can also be wrong: with catastrophic consequences. In this myth-shattering book, Jerome Groopman pinpoints the forces and thought processes behind the decisions doctors make.
-
-
Disappointing
- By Audiophile on 05-13-07
-
When Death Becomes Life
- Notes from a Transplant Surgeon
- By: Joshua D. Mezrich
- Narrated by: Josh Bloomberg
- Length: 11 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the University of Wisconsin, Dr. Joshua Mezrich creates life from loss, transplanting organs from one body to another. In this intimate, profoundly moving work, he illuminates the extraordinary field of transplantation that enables this kind of miracle to happen every day.
-
-
Memoir and history, beautifully written
- By Bonny on 01-22-19
-
Mama Day
- By: Gloria Naylor
- Narrated by: uncredited
- Length: 11 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Miranda Day, known as "Mama Day", is the elderly matriarch of Willow Springs, a small sea island off the southeast coast of the United States. Mama Day finds herself pitted in mortal combat with dark forces that threaten the body and soul of her beloved great-niece, Cocoa, who has gone "mainside" and married an urban Northerner.
-
-
A Classic
- By Gina on 10-22-08
By: Gloria Naylor
-
The Inheritance
- A Family on the Front Lines of the Battle Against Alzheimer's Disease
- By: Niki Kapsambelis
- Narrated by: Callie Beaulieu
- Length: 9 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Every 69 seconds, someone is diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. Of the top 10 killers, it is the only disease for which there is no cure or treatment. For most people, there is nothing that they can do to fight back. But one family is doing all they can. The DeMoe family has the most devastating form of the disease that there is: early onset Alzheimer's, an inherited genetic mutation that causes the disease in 100 percent of cases, and has a 50 percent chance of being passed onto the next generation.
-
-
A Cover-to-Cover Slug in the Gut, but Inspiring
- By Gillian on 04-16-17
By: Niki Kapsambelis
great book. the narrator was too slow.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Captivating
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
It was a touching story
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.