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Won for All How the Drosophila Genome Was Sequenced
Michael Ashburner
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, 2006 ISBN: 0-87969-802-0 |
This very short account of how the fruit fly genome was sequenced in the very late 20th century is a must read for any "Drosophilist" (what fruit fly researchers call themselves), geneticist, genomicist or science historian. Penned by one of the scientists who participated in the process, the reader is guaranteed a "front row" account of this achievement. More significantly, the author candidly reports individual events (at least as perceived by him), in often blunt detail, which always makes history not just fun, but more believable. It is a short story, spanning the 1998 - 2000 time period, when the scientist (which some also call "maverick" or "disruptor") Craig Venter informs the scientific world that he will sequence, annotate and publish the complete genome of the model organism Drosophila melanogaster in just a few months, blindsiding the Drosophila community, which was already doing this, albeit much more slowly, and using more traditional methods.
As factual, and raw as this account is, readers should note that it is written mostly as a stream of consciousness account by the author, and apparently as a cathartic release of his stressful experience surviving the ordeal. As such, it is sometimes easy to get lost in the timeline and details, especially given the large number of digressions, events and participants recorded in only 74 crown octavo pages. It certainly helps that the author includes explanatory footnotes throughout, but when realizing that there are a 161 of them, perhaps more thought should have been given to this story. A longer account, with some attentive editing would have been in order to create a better record of the events for posterity. Oh well, can't win them all.
