Cracking the Genome, by Kevin Davies, retells the entire
history of the science behind sequencing the human genome.
His story starts
with James Watson and Francis Crick in 1953, when they discovered the double
helix structure of DNA. He continues all the way up through the Human Genome
Project. Approved in 1990 by the United States of America Government, the Human
Genome Project was slated to be a 15 year long project and had a budget of $3
billion. It was originally headed up by James Watson, but he resigned after a
dispute with the head of the National Institute of Health over gene patenting. His
successor was Francis Collins, the genius who discovered the gene for cystic
fibrosis. Oddly enough, his brother was an administrator at my high school and
I was able to meet him just months after the human genome was cracked for the
first time.
This book is aimed at the general public. It is not too
difficult to understand and does not employ too much industry specific jargon.
Thankfully, it is told in the format of a story so it would be very easy to get
high school students to read it for a
biology class or just to sit an read for
personal interest. I give this book my highest personal recommendation. It was
given to me as a gift several years ago by my Advanced Placement Biology
teacher, Anne Griffin and the rest of the Science Department.
The author, Kevin Davies, is the founding editor of
Nature Generics and coauthor of Breakthrough: The Race for the Breast Cancer
Gene. He has degrees from Oxford and the University of London. He also attended
MIT and Harvard before joining the editorial team at Nature. He currently lives
in Boston and is the Executive Editor of Current Biology.