"In 1953, James Watson and Francis Crick discovered the double helix structure of DNA. The discovery was a profound, Nobel-Prize-winning moment in the history of genetics, but it did not decipher the messages on the twisted ladderlike strands within our cells. No one knew what the human genome sequence actually was. No one had cracked the code of life. Now, at the beginning of a new millennium, that code has been cracked....Here for the first time, in rich human, scientific, and financial detail, is the dramatic story of one of the greatest scientific feats ever accomplished: the mapping of the human genome....Davies captures the drama of this momentous achievement, drawing on his own genetics expertise and interviews with key scientists including [J. Craig] Venter and [Francis] Collins, as well as Eric Lander, an MIT computer wizard, Kari Stefánsson, the genetics entrepreneur who is remaking Iceland's economy, and John Sulston, chief of the UK genome project....'Cracking the Genome' is the definitive account of how the code that holds the answers to the origin of life, the evolution of humanity, and the future of medicine was broken."

Knights of the double helix : the quest for biology's holy grail --Reading the book of life : a quick voyage around the human genome -- Eye of the TIGR : J. Craig Venter, maverick sequencer -- Loading the bases : Francis Collins and the DNA detectives -- Circle of life : decoding the first free-living creatures -- Treasures of the lost worlds : the keys to human disease from Tristan da Cunha to Iceland -- Prize fight : the creation of Celera Genomics -- Story of us : the secrets of who we are -- Croesus code : passion, personality, and profit -- Eighth day : braving the new world of designer genes -- Language of God : a defining moment in the history of the human race.