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Cracking the Genome
Book

Cracking the Genome

Inside the Race to Unlock Human DNA

Kevin Davies
Free Press, 2001

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Editorial Rating

8

Qualities

  • Innovative

Recommendation

Ken Davies has written an informed observer’s account of the passionate race to solve what some believe to be the most profound scientific riddle of our era: decoding the human genome. His book is an undertaking of ambitious scope: He aims to paint the personalities in all their human colors and offer an accurate historical account, while also drilling deep enough into the research to do justice to the science. He does a beautiful job of suggesting the profound personal motivations of the two protagonists of the drama, scientists Francis Crick and maverick scientist J. Craig Venter. Short of earning your Ph.D. in molecular science, this may be as close as you ever get to understanding what the hoopla was really all about. getabstract recommends Davies’ book as a must for savvy thinkers in the biotech business, and an enlightening read for the rest of us mere (genetically flawed) mortals.

Take-Aways

  • Mapping the human genome is arguably the greatest scientific accomplishment of the 1900s.
  • Bureaucratic institutions and private enterprise raced to decode the human genome.
  • Key researchers included Francis Crick of the U.S. National Institute of Health and J. Craig Venter of Celera Genomics. Both had deep personal motivations.

About the Author

Kevin Davies was formally trained in the science of molecular genetics, and has hunted for genes that cause cystic fibrosis and muscular dystrophy. In 1990, he joined the prestigious British journal Nature, where Watson and Crick’s revolutionary discovery was first published. He met repeatedly with the principal figures in the race to decode the human genome throughout the course of that heralded scientific effort. Davies previously co-authored a book on the race to find the gene that causes breast cancer.

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