“On a personal level, Professor Fahd Al Mulla is no stranger to the vagaries of human genes and how changes in them can cause serious health problems--or even worse. As an infant in Lebanon, where his mother comes from, he came down with poliomyelitis.While the disease has now largely been eradicated, in the 1960s it was still common in many parts of the world and children sometimes did not survive it. The young Fahd did survive, but not only did he need to start using crutches to get around, he had to endure a childhood fraught with a number of other challenges.”