The Genome War: How Craig Venter Tried to Capture the Code of Life and… (2004)

The BEST book about the Humane Genome Project and Celera (and I have read them all...). ( )

Craig Venter instigated one of the biggest scientific races in modern times by challenging the government funded Human Genome Project to arrive at a privately funded sequencing of the human genome using an untested technique. Shreeve does an excellent job capturing the intensity and excitement of the scientific, academic, business and intellectual property complexity of the human genome. Venter gave Shreeve almost unlimited access to the activities of his company, Celera, during the historic achievement.

Recently, a graduate student at the University of Oregon shared his excitement in unlocking the secrets of the cellular processes involved in the differentiation of a fruit fly stem cell into its retinal cell. I had no idea how far genomic science had come and how interesting the interaction of the “wet bench�€? research is when combined with the power of bioinformatics of the “dry benchâ€? (computer simulation) to find sequences of cellular processes. The wet bench is used to explore the interactions of single genes and their effects on proteins and a single cellular process. As more is learned, it is put into the computer to understand the complex interaction of multiple genes, multiple proteins and thousands of cellular processes. Most of this new found capability arose out of the human genome project race.

At the heart of the book, the author captures the tension between business research, academic research, intellectual property rights, and the freedom to share scientific information. Shreeve personalizes this tension through the battles between Venter and Francis Collins of the NIH for the academic glory and the battles of Venter and his boss Tony White of Perkin Elmer. These same issues are fought daily not just in biology but also in areas like the Open Source Software Movement and the patenting of software.

This book is a great read capturing an important piece of scientific history and a great lay person’s introduction to the many aspects of genomic sciences. Since the book was published, Venter has turned his sites on another impossible problem – helping the world use less energy. His latest company, Synthetic Genomics, is heeding the call of Tom Friedman to find ways to make the US more energy efficient. Venter is working on creating new organisms which will “eatâ€? pollutants and produce energy products like ethanol and hydrogen. ( )

tries to portray it as fast paced and exciting. biology unfortunately is not. very good with the analogies, although light on the technical information. ( )