Cracking the genome : inside the race to unlock human DNA

Abstract

In 1953, James Watson and Francis Crick discovered double helix structure of DNA. The discovery was a profound, Nobel Prize-winning moment in history of genetics, but it did not decipher messages on twisted, ladderlike strands within our cells. No one knew what human genome sequence actually was. No one had cracked code of life. Now, at beginning of a new millennium, that code has been cracked. Kevin Davies, founding editor of leading journal in field, Nature Genetics, has relentlessly followed story as it unfolded, week by week, for ten years. Here for first time, in rich human, scientific, and financial detail, is dramatic story of one of greatest scientific feats ever accomplished: mapping of human genome. In 1990, U.S. government approved a 15-year, $3 billion plan to launch Human Project, whose goal was to sequence 3 billion letters of human DNA. At helm of project was James Watson, who resigned after only a couple of years, following a feud with National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Bernadine Healy over gene patenting. His successor was brilliant young medical geneticist Francis Collins, who had made his name discovering gene for cystic fibrosis. As Davies reports, Collins is a devout Christian who has traveled to Africa to work in a missionary hospital. He believes human genome sequence is the language of God. Just as Collins became project director, J. Craig Venter, a maverick DNA sequencer and Vietnam veteran, was leaving NIH to start his own private research institute. Venter had developed a simple shotgun strategy for sequencing DNA, and his fameskyrocketed when his new institute proved his sequencing system worked by becoming first to sequence entire genome of a microorganism. Only 3 percent of human genome had been sequenced by early 1998, public project's halfway point. That same year, Venter was approached by PE Corporation to launch a private human genome project. He stunned world when he announced formation of a new company to sequence human genome in a mere three years for $300 million. A war of words broke out between public and private researchers. Undeterred, Venter built Celera Genomics with motto Speed matters. Discovery can't wait. and an $80 million supercomputer. While insults intensified, Celera's stock price soared, tumbled, and soared again. Negotiations for cooperation between public and private institutes began, only to fall apart in acrimony. Then in spring of 2000 President Clinton stepped in, telling his science adviser to restart negotiations. History was about to be made. Davies captures drama of this momentous achievement, drawing on his own genetics expertise and interviews with key scientists including Venter and Collins, as well as Eric Lander, an MIT computer wizard who refers to public genome project as the forces of good; Kari Stefansson, genetics entrepreneur who is remaking Iceland's economy; and John Sulston, chief of UK genome project, who led charge against gene patenting. Davies has visited geneticists around world to illustrate a vast international enterprise working on frontier of human knowledge. Cracking Genome is definitive account of how code that holds answers to origin of life,the evolution of humanity, and future of medicine was broken.

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