Cracking the Genome

the long version

"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."