快猫短视频

The Common Thread by John Sulston and Georgina Ferry, Bantam Press, 拢17.99, ISBN 0593048016

JOHN SULSTON was a reluctant recruit in the fiercest scientific battle of the ten years. He had worked in relative obscurity researching the genetics of nematode worms during the 1970s and 1980s. Then came the decision to sequence the entire human genome, sparking off an epic struggle between two sides with very different goals-one to market a product, the other to spread knowledge around.

Sulston headed the latter group. Promoted to head of the Sanger Institute near Cambridge in 1993, he found himself marshalling the British contingent of an international army of publicly funded scientists pledged to offer their colleagues free access to the data they produced. Squaring up on the opposite side was the US company Celera. It planned to make commercial use of the information generated by its squadrons of automatic sequencing machines.

Despite his reluctance to assume the leader鈥檚 role, Sulston proved able. He kept his American colleagues鈥� nerves steady while Celera attempted to persuade Congress to withdraw government funding for the public project. In the end, the two sides fought to an honourable draw, with the joint announcement of a draft human genome in June 2000.

The Common Thread is Sulston鈥檚 candid account from the front line, co-authored by science writer Georgina Ferry. It鈥檚 a lively read, not least because Sulston takes the opportunity to fire off a few last rounds. These are mainly aimed at his old adversary, Celera boss Craig Venter, and the media, which he claims never fully appreciated the ethical gap in this very public war-快猫短视频 being an 鈥渉onourable exception鈥�.