Manufacturing My Miracle: One Womans Quest to Create her Personalized Gene Ther [Hardcover]

Who lives? Who dies? Who decides? One woman's quest to save her family from a rare hereditary disorder and what it means for our collective genetic future

InManufacturing My Miracle, Jill Dopf Viles becomes her own researcher to solve the genetic mystery that has plagued generations of her family. She discovers a link to Olympic hurdler Priscilla Lopes Schliep and, as gene therapy costs $4.25 million per treatment, she miraculously develops her own for a mere $1,500. With her personalized cure stored in her freezer, the most critical decision becomes: should she risk her health to save her family or wait for an industry unlikely to prioritize ultra-rare diseases?

Who lives? Who dies? Who decides? One woman's quest to save her family from a rare genetic disorder and what it means for our collective genetic futureJill Dopf Viles(1974-2025) pursued her B.S. at Drake and Iowa State University in the field of biology/genetics. Vile's researching scientific clinical literature resulted in self-diagnosing herself and her father with Emery-Dreifuss muscular dystrophy (EDMD). She later received a master's in creative writing from Iowa State University and was an annual attendee of the University of Iowa Summer Writing Festival. In the course of researching her bookManufacturing My Miracleon her family's rare muscle disorder, she collaborated with scientists at the University of Iowa performing gene therapy on mutant fruit flies. Her writing appeared inJohn Hopkins Magazine,and her scientific work was published in medical journalsGene, Cells,andScience Advances.Jill lived in rural Iowa with her husband, Jeremy, and a lively golden retriever, Yoshi. Learn more about Jill at Jill lived in rural Iowa with her husband, Jeremy, and a lively golden retriever, Yoshi. Learn more about Jill on her website: Diyscientist.

The breadth of life contained in Jill's new book is incredible. . . . Powerful [and] canlē