| View Larger Image | The Genome War: How Craig Venter Tried to Capture the Code of Life and Save the World | Paperbackby James Shreeve (Author)
| List Price: | $16.00 | | Price: | $14.40 | | You Save: | $1.60 (10%) | | | Available: | Usually ships in 24 hours |
| | Binding: | Paperback | | Publisher: | Ballantine Books | | Page Count: | 416 Pages | | Publication Date: | June 28, 2005 | | Sales Rank: | 149,287th |
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FEATURES | - ISBN13: 9780345433749
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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EDITORIAL REVIEWS |
Product Description
The long-awaited story of the science, the business, the politics, the intrigue behind the scenes of the most ferocious competition in the history of modern science—the race to map the human genome.On May 10, 1998, biologist Craig Venter, director of the Institute for Genomic Research, announced that he was forming a private company that within three years would unravel the complete genetic code of human life—seven years before the projected finish of the U.S. government’s Human Genome Project. Venter hoped that by decoding the genome ahead of schedule, he would speed up the pace of biomedical research and save the lives of thousands of people. He also hoped to become very famous and very rich. Calling his company Celera (from the Latin for “speed”), he assembled a small group of scientists in an empty building in Rockville, Maryland, and set to work.At the same time, the leaders of the government program, under the direction of Francis Collins, head of the National Human Genome Research Institute at the National Institutes of Health, began to mobilize an unexpectedly unified effort to beat Venter to the prize—knowledge that had the potential to revolutionize medicine and society. The stage was set for one of the most thrilling—and important—dramas in the history of science. The Genome War is the definitive account of that drama—the race for the greatest prize biology has had to offer, told by a writer with exclusive access to Venter’s operation from start to finish. It is also the story of how one man’s ambition created a scientific Camelot where, for a moment, it seemed that the competing interests of pure science and commercial profit might be gloriously reconciled—and the national repercussions that resulted when that dream went awry.From the Hardcover edition. |
CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 5.0 based on 15 reviews)
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A candid and informative look at teh race for one of the greatest scientific milestones by Bojan Tunguz (Greencastle, IN USA)  5 Stars
November 09, 2009
The decoding of the entire human DNA has been rightly considered the most important scientific achievement of the start of end of twentieth and the beginning of twenty-first century. The Human Genome, as the complete DNA information is know, is a vast, complicated information resource that is essentially a digital instruction book on how to build a human organism. The promise for all of human biology in understanding such an important repository of information is enormous. It has the potential to completely and irrevocably alter how biology and medicine are done. Ever since the epochal discovery of the structure of DNA by Watson and Crick, we had understood that genes are nothing else but the long strands of DNA molecule that code for particular proteins. At the same time the sheer size of the entire genome became obvious, and it seemed like it will be at least another century before we are able to decode it in its entirety. However, with passing of years our technology became ever more sophisticated and it started to look increasingly plausible that the decoding of the whole genome of single species was within the reach. Slowly a consortium of government-funded and academic labs started to form, with their eyes on the most important genome of them all: that of Homo Sapiens. However, in the late nineteen-nineties a powerful challenge to the government's project was launched from the private sector. Led by Craig Venter, "Celera Genomics" promised to map the entire human genome much faster than the government-sponsored consortium could, and presumably for a much more affordable price - it would certainly cost nothing to the taxpayers. Instead of buckling down, the government project decided to redouble its own effort and as a consequence the race for the primacy was born.
This book tells us about that race. It is primarily written from the point of view of Craig Venter, one of the most unique and controversial living scientists. He truly has really lead a very unusual scientific career, and had he achieved far less than the success with mapping the human genome it would have been still worthwhile to read his story. The narrative in this book is very compelling, and we get a lot of detail in how scientists go about their business, what it takes to assemble a World-class team for an enormously complex project, and how personal interactions and healthy egos make the actual path to scientific discovery much more messy than we would have otherwise thought. In real world there are no true dispassionate searchers for truth - ambition and all other basic human motivators are present and important. This book does a really good job of exposing these considerations and waving them all together in an enjoyable and readable story.
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Great book, beautifully written story by Spiros (Thesaloniki, Greece) 5 Stars
February 08, 2009
I was thrilled to read the story of how scientists like Venter, Collins, Adams, Lander, Myers and others finally managed to publish the human DNA genome sequence. My excitement derived part from the importance and the scientific impact of the project and part from the beautifully written manuscript. Literally, once I started the book I could not stop reading it. Congrats to the author of the book and of course to the stars of the story. -As I biologist I may only wish to live an effort as exciting and intense as this-
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Scientific journalism at it's best by Dr. David Reynolds (Toronto, Canada) 5 Stars
July 24, 2007
I picked up this book because I realized that I knew next to nothing about the human genome--one of the most significant scientific accomplishments of the century. Shreeve's explanation of what it is and why it matters while describing the dramatic intellectual, technical and commercial competition between the academic community and private venture capitalists--most notably Craig Ventor-- is spellbinding. The most painless way to familiarize yourself with recent human genome research. An outstandiing read.
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Hard to put down! by Keith R. Dennis (USA) 5 Stars
October 14, 2005
You don't need to be a scientist to be captivated by this book. This is a riveting story of the intersection of vision, ego, politics and the battle between commercial interests and publicly funded efforts to do nothing less than lay the foundation for the technology that will likely define this century.
This is not a dry chronicle of the scientific methods, technological and computational breakthroughs that made this great accomplishment possible. Rather, Shreeve manages to guide the layman through the intricacies of all of the above, while never loosing site of the more interesting story of the personalities and interactions among the key players in this story. There are lessons here for anyone - integrity, vision, politics, business, perception and the law of unintended consequences.
The best book I've read this year.
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A fascinating and exciting journey! by Igor Faynshteyn (Brooklyn, NY United States) 5 Stars
September 08, 2005
Firstly, I haven't even finished this book at the time of my writing this review, but I could no longer wait to comment on it.
The distinguished feature of this book is its style of writing. It is incredibly simple and straight forward, without any unncessary twist of language or logic. Although this is a depiction of the whole story behind the Human Genome Project, it reads like an epic tale of a breathtaking journey.
James Shreeve gives a close account of all the events that led up to sequencing of human genome, including politics, science, business, legal matters and personal relations. What's more, is that a lay reader who understands nothing about gene or molecular biology can learn a whole lot of things he didn't know before. While the book is not technical in biological and other scientific explanations, it is sufficient to explain to the lay reader about genes, their importance as well as their pharamaceutical value.
This book, like other reviewers have mentioned, is truly hard to put down. Highly recommended to everyone!!
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Growing up in California, Craig Venter didn’t appear to have much of a future. An unremarkable student, he nearly flunked out of high school. After being drafted into the army, he enlisted in the navy and went to Vietnam, where the life and death struggles he encountered as a medic piqued his interest in science and medicine. After pursuing his advanced degrees,...
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