McElheny - Drawing the map of life : inside the Human Genome Project

Praise for Drawing the Map of Life

A stirring explanation of why the Human Genome Projectwhich mapped our DNAmatters. Discover, 2010 Overlooked Gems

Whereas most accounts end with the race to a tie on publishing the human DNA sequence, McElheny follows the story through to the endeavors the HGP has spawned.... [He] sketches out a more complete history of genomics than previously available. Science

McElhenys history of what he calls a huge leap forward in science is comprehensive, attention-grabbing, and thorough. Genome Technology

McElheny knows almost everyone involved and describes their actions and motives fairly. This is no mean feat given the sizes of some of the egos involved, and the clashes between them. The Economist

A flowing narrative.... [Drawing the Map of Life] impressively traces the story from its rocky inception, through the contentious sequencing race between the public and private sectors, and into implications for the future. Choice

Drawing the Map of Life elegantly describes for curious readers the wonders of contemporary biology. Knowing so many of the key scientists personally, he is in a unique position to bring readers close to the effort which now dominates 21st Century biology. David Baltimore, Nobel Laureate, former President, AAAS

McElhenys wide lens makes for a sophisticated story and it also engenders a real sense of wonder at the sheer amount of genius engaged in the project.... New Scientist

Well-developed profiles and anecdotes of the characters involved, but the real value is in McElhenys enumeration of the astonishing complexities in human and other genomes revealed by todays sophisticated technologies.... Readers will appreciate the implications of the new learning on evolution, agriculture, energy and prospects for personalized medicine. Kirkus Reviews

Part primer, part thriller, and wholly compelling, Victor McElhenys history of the Human Genome Project is essential reading as both genomic science and the genomics industry move forward at lightning speed. Henry Louis Gates Jr., author of In Search of Our Roots

As the science journalist Victor McElheny tells it in his racy and well-documented account, practical science can be as grubbily political and ego-driven as anything that goes on in the boardroom of international conglomerates. This is a very modern story and, ultimately, curiously heart-warming. Sunday Times (UK)

A fine synthesis of what science has learned in the first decade of the genomic age.BBC Focus (UK)

Ever since scientists began attempting to map the DNA that makes up the human genome, Victor McElheny has followed the scientists into the labyrinth, talking with them about the conundrums, the rivalries, the scientific divisions. In bringing the astounding story of the human genome to its present triumphs his gift for writing with authority, marrying lucid explanation with vivid characterization, makes Drawing the Map of Life an important and exciting book. Harold Evans, author of They Made America

DRAWING THE MAP OF LIFE

DRAWING THE MAP OF LIFE

Inside the Human Genome Project

VICTOR K. McELHENY

A MERLOYD LAWRENCE BOOK

BASIC BOOKS

A Member of the Perseus Books Group

Copyright 2010 by Victor K. McElheny

Afterword copyright 2012 by Victor K. McElheny

Hardcover edition first published in 2010 as a Merloyd Lawrence Book by Basic Books

A Member of the Perseus Books Group

Paperback edition first published in 2012 by Basic Books

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, address Basic Books, 387 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10016-8810.

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Designed by Brent Wilcox

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

McElheny, Victor K.

Drawing the map of life : inside the Human Genome Project / Victor K. McElheny.

p. ; cm.

"A Merloyd Lawrence book."

Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Human Genome ProjectHistory. I. Title.

[DNLM: 1. Human Genome Project. 2. Human Genome Project.

3. Genomics. QZ 50 M4776d 2010]

QH447.M355 2010

611'.0181663dc22

2010003339

ISBN 978-0-465-03260-0 (e-book)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

For Ruth

CONTENTS

Two opposing laws seem to me now in contest. The one, a law of blood and death, opening out each day new modes of destruction, forces nations to be always ready for the battle. The other, a law of peace, work, and health, whose only aim is to deliver man from the calamities which beset him... [O]f this we may be sure, that science, in obeying the law of humanity, will always labor to enlarge the frontiers of life.

Louis Pasteur,
remarks read at the dedication of
the Institut Pasteur, 14 November 1888;
quoted in Encyclopaedia Britannica,
Eleventh Edition (1911) 20, 894

Ten years ago, in the East Room of the White House, U.S. President Bill Clinton celebrated the completion of a most wondrous map of the DNA that makes up the human genome. He compared it to the map of the vast American West that Meriwether Lewis and William Clark presented to Thomas Jefferson in the White House nearly two centuries earlier. This book outlines the events leading to that ceremony and chronicles the torrent of efforts since then to fill in the genomic map and make sense of it.

This narrative of the human genome project and its consequences appears just as commercial firms are preparing to sequence the entire DNA of tens of thousands of peopleonly ten years after scientists managed to spell out the order of the adenines, thymines, cytosines, and guanines of just one human. The history sketched here is recent, vast, and exploding. The pages ahead summarize a continuing revolution that began in fundamental biology and now, more and more, is entering our lives to create a genomic age. It is one of the greatest positive achievements of our scientific civilization.