Tabula Raza

Duana Fullwiley has penned an intimate chronicle of laboratory life in the genomic age. She presentsmany of the influential scientists at the forefront of genetics who have redefined how we practice medicine and law and understand ancestry in an era of big data and waning privacy. Exceedingly relatable and human, the scientists in these pages often struggle for visibility, teeter on the tightrope of inclusion, andwork tirelessly to imprint the future. As they actively imagine a more equal and just world, they often findthemselves ensnared in reproducing timeworn conceits of race and racism that can seed the same healthdisparities they hope to resolve. Nothing dynamic can live for long as a blank slate, an innocenttabula rasa. But how the blank slateof the once-raceless human genome became one of racial differences, in various forms of what Fullwileycalls thetabularaza, has a very specific and familiar historyone that has cycled through the ages inunexpected ways.