The $1,000 Genome - by Kevin Davies (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

In this essential guide to the brave new future, Dr. Kevin Davies, author of Cracking the Genome, reveals the masterful ingenuity that transformed the process of decoding DNA and vividly brings the extraordinary drama of the grand scientific achievement to life.

In 2000, President Bill Clinton signaled the completion of the Human Genome Project at a cost in excess of $2 billion. A decade later, the price for any of us to order our own personal genome sequence--a comprehensive map of the 3 billion letters in our DNA--had already dropped to just $1,000.

Dozens of men and women--scientists, entrepreneurs, celebrities, and patients--have already been sequenced, pioneering a bold new era of personalized genomic medicine. The $1,000 genome has long been considered the tipping point that would open the floodgates to this revolution.

How has this astonishing achievement been accomplished? To research the story of this unfolding revolution, critically acclaimed science writer Kevin Davies traveled to the leading centers and interviewed the entrepreneurs and pioneers in the race to achieve the $1,000 genome. Davies also profiles the future of genomic medicine and thoughtfully explores the many pressing issues raised by the tidal wave of personal genetic information.

About the Author

Kevin Davies, Ph.D., is the author of The $1,000 Genome. His previous book Cracking the Genome was translated into 15 languages. He is currently Editor-in-Chief of Bio-IT World, a trade magazine covering the role of technology in the life sciences. He was the founding editor of Nature Genetics, the world's leading genetics journal, which he headed for its first five years. He has also written for the Times (London), Boston Globe, New England Journal of Medicine, and New Scientist, among others. His first book, Breakthrough (co-authored with Michael White) told the story of the race for the BRCA1 breast cancer gene. Davies holds an M.A. in biochemistry from the University of Oxford and a Ph.D in molecular genetics from the University of London. He held postdoctoral fellowships at MIT and Harvard Medical School before moving into science publishing as an editor with Nature magazine. He lives in Lexington, Massachusetts.