It is a very interesting read.

I have enjoyed a complexity of politics, some drama of last minute advances of projects, complexity of inner workings in a lab. The book does seem as a true representation of a complex project’s life that is very interesting to experience and relate to.

James Shreeve’s novel, The Genome War, is a fast-paced, action-packed book about the race to complete the human genome. It is aptly named, as the race became an intellectual conflict comparable to a war. In his thrilling novel, Shreeve opened my eyes to the ordinariness of scientists, the political nature of scientific discovery, and the way competition can shape results.
Before reading The Genome War, I idolized the forefathers of genetics (Mendel, Darwin, Watson, McClintock, etc.). Because of their accomplishments, it was easy for me to think of them as super-human. This book revealed things far beyond the accomplishments listed in textbooks, however. Mendel himself—the father of plant genetics—is painted as a reclusive, awkward man who was a terrible presenter and lacked the ego to be successful at anything in his lifetime. He was not particularly brilliant, but was observant and a little bit lucky. This is quite a contrast to the bright, humble, innovative monk I’ve learned about in the classroom. Now, he is so much more human to me. The leaders of the two opposing sides of the genome war were unfamiliar to me before reading this book, but Shreeve led me on a similarly illuminating journey as he told the stories of their lives.
Craig Venter was far from being an exceptional student or high achiever in his youth. In fact, he failed many of his classes in junior high and high school, didn’t plan to attend college, and even tried to get out of mandatory military service. To me, he seemed like a self-absorbed beach bum with little perspective and few ambitions. He had always been clever, but didn’t make much of his life until he returned from his compulsory service as a medic in the Vietnam war. He had learned the hard way about the fragile nature of human life and wanted to learn more. He had plenty of ego, which ended up serving him very well as he pursued an education and career in biomedical research.
Francis Collins, on the other hand, seemed to have had an idyllic upbringing. Shreeve takes advantage of the two contrasting characters by describing the little Virginia farm where Collins was homeschooled and emphasizing that he was always a good student with high aspirations. He is much more like the noble, virtuoso, textbook scientist I had expected, but even the principled Dr. Collins was prone to the pride that seems fundamental among scientific giants.
As the story of Collins and Venter is told, Shreeve also uses their unique experiences to illustrate the two sides of science: “big business” and “pure science.” These opposing factions are introduced early in the book as the main cause of the conflict. Thus far, scientists have been able to achieve greatness in either academics or in business—not both simultaneously. Businessmen in the scientific world are unabashedly seeking their fortune by using science and technology. The goal of pure science is, supposedly, the more righteous cause of the betterment of mankind. Yet, under the pretense of being noble, academia is just as full of arrogance as big business. While the businessmen are in it for the money, academics want credit and fame.
Venter is the perfect poster-child for big business science. In fact, he is so ambitious that he tries to go in for both the credit and the money when he decides to privately sequence the human genome ahead of the public program’s schedule. This cross into the territory of academia is an outrage to the public human genome project. Collins, the director of the project, embodies “altruistic” academia as he nobly amasses his scientific troops to finish the genome first. Within the conflict between Venter’s project and the public human genome project, Shreeve’s illustrates the huge amount of ego motivating both sides.
The ensuing competition raises an interesting question for the reader. Did the competition between the two programs work in favor of good science, or against it? Without each other’s competition, it would undoubtedly have taken much longer to complete the entire human genome. As the two projects raced to a finish, they realized that neither could win completely. Venter and Collins decided to shake hands and finish together. Their articles were published in the same magazine on the same day, and that was the end of the conflict. The tie seemed a bit dissatisfying to both projects, and it was a letdown to me as a reader, as well. But was the conflict that lead to this peaceful resolution beneficial to the result?
Shreeve seems to be biased in favor of scientific competition. It is true that the pace of scientific invention rapidly increased, enabling the human genome to be sequenced far ahead of schedule. As the race sped up, though, all of the scientists involved seemed concerned that they were losing quality and accuracy. It seems that the competition caused the scientists to sacrifice quality for speed. In my opinion, scientific accuracy would be better than finishing a project just a few years ahead of schedule. At the same time, if science works like capitalism, a little bit of competition is excellent motivation.
The overlying insight that I will take away from this book is that science is a field for ordinary human beings who want to accomplish the extraordinary. The scientists I’ve read about in textbooks were often far from being perfect or unusually brilliant. They were fallible, imperfect human beings. Some may have even been more fortunate than smart or more motivated by ego than by virtue. Also, no matter how much knowledge has been revealed recently in biological sciences, our knowledge is far from complete. I have been somewhat aware of discoveries in the biological sciences from a young age. I actually remember learning that the human genome had been sequenced as an elementary school student. The importance of that achievement has never meant more to me than it does now that I am studying genetics at BYU. It is incredible that so much has happened in my lifetime, and it makes me excited to join the ranks of scientists who are still learning more about genetics. The Genome War has shaped the way I think about biology and genomics by making me realize that there is still so much to be understood, that science is a live and active field, and that I can play a role in the rapidly developing field of genetics.

خمسمائة صفحة من المتعة الخالصة.. من أروع الكتب العلمية لهذا العام

I thought this was a fantastic book. I knew the saga pretty well, but this was an incredible deep dive into all that happened behind the scenes. Sometimes I was amazed at the level of detail, like the author was in the room when major decisions were being made.

Having worked for him at TIGR, I really enjoyed seeing the next chapter. This author really captures the culture and excitement of the man and the project. It is a real page-turner, as well. Venter is such an exciting and enigmatic guy, Shreve will need to write a second volume, soon.

This book takes on a complex project: it aims to detail the scientific, legal, ethical and social occurrences that led up to the sequencing of the full human genome. However, it makes more of the narrative arc of the race to sequence the genome than is really useful in explaining what really happened. but, it's interesting.

Difficult to read a book about such unpleasant people. Are there any geneticists out there who are also decent human beings?

Much of the science went directly over my head, but the drama of the race for the human genome is a fascinating one. On one side, there is the government funded Human Genome project, made up of universities and various government agencies and on the other side is Craig Venter. Venter’s concern was not only with sequencing the human genome, but also in capturing “valuable” real estate on the genome via patenting. Thus, the race took on mind-boggling importance of who would own the code to life. Would it be made freely available to the public, or would its disposition rest solely on the whims of a private company? In the end, a tie was declared and everyone came away slightly peeved and slightly happy. While Shreeve did a good job of capturing the tensions of the era, he largely ducked and avoided any of the deeper questions such as: Now that we have the sequence, what are we going to do with it? Who is going to benefit? How? And so on. McKibben and Berry would have a field day with this one.

The distinguished feature of this book is its style of writing. It is fluent and straight forward. 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 the sequencing of human genome, including politics, science, business, legal issues and personal relations. What's more, is that a lay reader who understands nothing about genes or molecular biology can learn much from this book. While the book is non-technical it is sufficient to explain to the lay reader about genes, their importance, as well as their pharmaceutical value.

This book is a true page-turner, and hard to put down.

The facts are the same, but presented without doubts differently than in the Venter's book (more attacks on Venter in comparison to Venter's unnatural modesty).

[-Addendum to 14th Amendment: no discrimination on the bases of genetic material
]

James Shreeve had the inside scoop on Celera's attempt to sequence the human genome in the year 2000 and after a three year period, he was allowed to publish it. The narrative is one-sided - as Shreeve writes, he was not given access to the NIH Human Genome Project so his descriptions of those events are second hand. He does an excellent job explaining the science behind the sequencing and interpretation of the genome and creates memorable characters out of the scientists at Celera. I think there's particular value in understanding the strengths and weaknesses of the private sector versus the government-funded efforts. While the private sector was able to be more innovative and mobilize resources more efficiently, sequencing the human genome ended up being a lousy business proposition and the public agencies are still strong entities fifteen years later after the events of this book.

Very YA-y. Pretty interesting but you'll hate Venter by the end of the book.