Summary: The Family That Couldn T Sleep

In this attention grabbing, brillaintly plotted, and elegantly written book, D. T. Max shows us what happens when the insomnia doesn’t end, no matter how aggressive the medical intervention or sedative prescription is. He tells the story of an Italian family that for at least 200 years has been plagued by an extremely rare hereditary disorder that destroys the brain’s capacity to fall asleep. Ultimately, if you stop sleeping altogether, you will probably end up suffering; effects include losing all bodily control and finally a horrible death. Although science may not yet understand the purpose of slumber, fatal familial insomnia, the author suggests, it could be “the worst disease in the world.”
Lethal sleep deprivation is one of several linked
The novel also discusses how chemists are familiar with confrontational influence, which they call nucleation. Many researchers such as Stanley Prusiner and Fred Cohen have worked hard in their fields to improve the medical processes of our time.
I believe material from both my chemistry and biology classes contributes to my understanding of prion disease. The background knowledge of proteins and their characteristics help me to analyze the spread of the disease better. Engineering the prion protein using chemical synthesis and biological characteristics will provide a full analysis.
The author concludes with his own story, about a mysterious neuromuscular disease that is gradually robbing him of his mobility. Like the prion diseases, his is a disorder of misfolded proteins. However he realizes that his condition is not as fatal as familial insomnia or the other destructive prion diseases. Ultimately, I believe that D.T Maz presents the mysterious past and possible future circumstances of medical diseases. The more we research and analyze these cases, the better interpretation we can have towards a