A Story of Science, Politics, Ethics and the Human Genome.
John Sulston was director of the Sanger Centre in Cambridge from 1993 to 2000. There he led the British arm of the international team selected to map the entire human DNA sequence, a feat that was pulled off in record time by an extraordinary collaboration of scientists.
In this personal account John Sulston takes us behind the scenes of one of the largest international scientific operations ever undertaken. He reveals the politics, controversy, ethics, personalities, setbacks and accomplishments that shaped the seven years of research. He also reveals his hopes and concerns about how the information unlocked by the Human Genome Project will affect people's lives in the future.
'The Common Thread' is at once a compelling history of this most exciting of scientific breakthroughs and an impassioned call for ethical responsibility in scientific research. It tells a story of our shared human heritage, offering hope for future research and a fresh outlook on our scientific understanding of ourselves.
