April showers bring May flowers and also National DNA Day, which celebrates two important scientific achievements: the discovery of DNA's double helix in 1953 and the completion of the Human Genome Project in 2003. All our genes together are known as our genome.”  Today, genomic medicine involves using genetic information for an individual’s clinical care (e.g. to aid diagnosis or treatment decisions) and is making an impact in the fields of cancer, drug research and therapies, rare and undiagnosed diseases, and infectious disease.

We encourage you to learn more about human genetics by reading one of these books and discussing it in your book club. Visit NNLM Reading Club: DNA & U to get started.

In the Gene Machine, Nobel Prize winning scientist Dr. Ramakrishnan shares his personal struggles as a young immigrant to the United States, intertwined with his experience as a research scientist involved in the gripping race to discover the structure of ribosomes. These cellular structures are essential to human life because they translate our DNA into proteins needed for survival.

As part of this year’s DNA celebration, we invite you to join the NNLM Reading Club in partnership with the NNLM Community Engagement Center and the National Alliance for Hispanic Health on April 25 for our DNA Day celebration with Genomics authors Hans C. Andersson & Whitney Stewart as they discuss their book. To receive a free Genomics book club kit and to register for the author talk, visit: https://allofus.nnlm.gov/genomics-book-reading-club-kit

A young, Black mother faces the unfathomable in the book This Boy We Made when her 22-month-old son wakes up listless and is rushed to the hospital. After enduring agonizing months of medical exams, tests and procedures that left her son undiagnosed, author Taylor Harris fights to be taken seriously by the medical establishment. Unexpected answers come when a geneticist shares vital information.