The Beautiful Cure

The Beautiful Cure

Harnessing Your Body’s Natural Defences

Summary

Random House presents the audiobook edition of The Beautiful Cure by Daniel M Davis, read by Jot Davies.

The immune system holds the key to human health. In The Beautiful Cure, leading immunologist Professor Daniel Davis describes the scientific quest to understand how it works – and how it is affected by stress, sleep, age and our state of mind – and explains how this knowledge is now unlocking a revolutionary new approach to medicine and well-being.

The body's ability to fight disease and heal itself is one of the great mysteries and marvels of nature. But within the last few years painstaking research has resulted in major advances in our understanding of this breathtakingly beautiful inner world: a vast and intricate network of specialist cells, regulatory proteins and dedicated genes that are continually protecting our bodies. Far more powerful than any medicine ever invented, it also plays a crucial role in our daily lives. Already we have found ways to harness these natural defences to create breakthrough drugs and so-called immunotherapies that help us fight cancer, diabetes, arthritis and many age-related diseases, and we are starting to understand whether or not activities such as mindfulness might play a role in enhancing our physical resilience.

Written by an expert at the forefront of this adventure, The Beautiful Cure tells a dramatic story of detective work and discovery, of puzzles solved and of the mysteries that remain, of lives sacrificed and saved, introducing the reader to this revelatory new understanding of the human body and what it takes to be healthy.

'One of those books that makes you look at everything human in a new, challenging and thrilling way' Stephen Fry

'Brilliantly conveys the excitement of scientific discovery' Bill Bryson

Reviews

  • Thrilling ... An eye-opening tour de force of scientific writing that reads like the best kind of adventure story
    Stephen Fry

About the author

Daniel M Davis

Daniel M. Davis is Head of Life Sciences and Professor of Immunology at Imperial College London. His previous books include The Beautiful Cure: The New Science of Human Health, which was shortlisted for the Royal Society Science Book Prize 2018, and The Secret Body: How the New Science of the Human Body Is Changing the Way We Live, which was described variously as 'an inspiration' by Tim Spector, 'beautifully rendered' by Brian Cox and 'masterful' by Alice Roberts. Davis's research, using super-resolution microscopy to study immune cell biology, was listed in Discover magazine as one of the Top 100 breakthroughs of the year. He has published over 150 academic research papers, including articles in Nature, Science, New Scientist and Scientific American.
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