Cracking The Genome
Subtitle: Inside The Race To Unlock Human Dna
Publisher: Free Press
Published: January 5, 2001
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 320
ISBN-13: 9780743204798
Subjects: Genetics (non-medical); History of specific subjects; Human biology & related topics; Science/Mathematics; Human genome; Genetic Code; Genetic Research; Science; Popular works; Life Sciences - Genetics & Genomics; History; Science / General; Philosophy & Social Aspects; Gene mapping; Genetics; Human Genome Project
First sentence: IN THE MARCH 7, 1986, ISSUE of Science magazine, the president of the Salk Institute, the Italian Nobel Laureate Renato Dulbecco, advocated the launch of a mammoth biology project to sequence the complete genome of an organism so as to understand the genetic changes that lead to cancer.
Description: "In 1953, James Watson and Francis Crick discovered the double helix structure of DNA. The discovery was a profound, Nobel-Prize-winning moment in the history of genetics, but it did not decipher the messages on the twisted ladderlike strands within our cells. No one knew what the human genome sequence actually was. No one had cracked the code of life. Now, at the beginning of a new millennium, that code has been cracked ... Here for the first time, in rich human, scientific, and financial detail, is the dramatic story of one of the greatest scientific feats ever accomplished: the mapping of the human genome ... Davies captures the drama of this momentous achievement, drawing on his own genetics expertise and interviews with key scientists including [J. Craig] Venter and [Francis] Collins, as well as Eric Lander, an MIT computer wizard, Kari Stefánsson, the genetics entrepreneur who is remaking Iceland's economy, and John Sulston, chief of the UK genome project ... 'Cracking the Genome' is the definitive account of how the code that holds the answers to the origin of life, the evolution of humanity, and the future of medicine was broken."