IT WAS 9 JUNE 2001 IN THE SMITHSONIAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL History in Washington DC. That weekend there was a meeting of the Genetic Alliance, a gathering of interest groups dedicated to supporting their genetically disadvantaged members. Francis Collins and I had just begun the proceedings by giving a joint presentation of the nuts and bolts of the Human Genome Project. At the end of the talk Francis picked up his guitar, as he often does at such events, and sang about the human genome, words he’d composed that morning to the tune of a folk song called ‘For all the good people’. The chorus went:

I was delighted that he’d used the very phrase that we’d hit on for the title of this book, so I compared notes to see if we’d mentioned it already. No, it had just come to him out of the blue. It must be an icon.

Like Francis, most of the characters in this drama are today continuing in their accustomed roles. For my part, I left the scene as intended, only to find myself not backstage but in another theatre and invited to keep performing. Media exposure and a knighthood have handed me a small platform. The knighthood is a tremendous honor, of course, but one to which I felt hardly entitled, given my limited contribution to the actual sequencing operation; after some hesitation I accepted with gratitude on the basis that it was a richly deserved recognition for the achievements of the Sanger Centre as a whole. Now, having got my invitation, have I got anything to say? As Tom Lehrer wisely remarked, ‘If a person can’t communicate, the very least he can do is to shut up.’ But it is a commonplace that science can do with more rather than less communication, so it’s incumbent on me to have a go for a while and see whether I can make a useful contribution. This chapter is one attempt to find out.

My other colleagues in the Human Genome Project remain engaged in saner pursuits closer to their calling, taking forward the human and other genomes while diversifying into interpretation and application. They and the public databases are the guarantors of the human genome. The large public labs are continuing to collaborate on new activities; the international network is thriving, with a meeting in Beijing in 2001 hosted by Huanming Yang, and many other private and public genomic initiatives under way.

The founders of Celera, meanwhile, have succeeded in becoming wealthy. However, in January 2002, its shares down to a tenth of their peak value, the company announced that Craig Venter was stepping down as President: Celera’s parent company, Applera, now envisages its future in drug discovery rather than sequencing and databases. The earlier claim to be the ‘definitive source’ of genomic information seems to have been abandoned—Celera now describes itself as a ‘leading provider’ of such information. But the struggle to keep genomic data free continued to the end, as we saw with the mouse genome, and indeed may never be over.

So, what would have been wrong with leaving it to a company? Just that, to the extent that the data are fundamental and important, they should be available to all on equal terms, not to the wealthy few. In addition, just as I found back at the beginning with ABI software, Celera tried to broaden its hold over the data. In signing up to Celera databases, academics had to agree to download what they needed for their own use but not to redistribute the data. This was essential, of course, to protect the company’s business, but it meant that the normal exchanges of bioinformatics were inhibited, could take place only through the company’s database, and were restricted to subscribers. How many biologists really think that this is a good way to run their research? Not many, I suspect, which is why there is general support for continued public sequencing. But they should be wary of inadvertently supporting a slide towards monopoly.

Or, in a few cases, advertently. Some scientists have written articles that uncritically reproduce Celera’s claims to sequence much faster and much more cheaply than anyone else. In so doing they acted as volunteer advertisers, for as we’ve seen these statements are not supported by the facts. The whole affair has been a remarkable example of the Emperor’s New Clothes. But so long as the funding agencies continue to support public sequencing, no great harm will have been done.

In common with most of the publicity about the human genome, I suppose this book is really premature. The project is by no means over, despite all the fuss, and to be writing an account already is perhaps presumptuous. But the draft sequence has been published, and the funding and expertise are in place for completion by 2003. So maybe it’s not so bad to take stock now.

First of all, where does this achievement—draft and finished—really stand in the overall scheme of things? Is it a Big Idea, or just an episode?

The sequencing of the human genome is not in itself one of the

big ideas, but it is a milestone embedded in the big idea of molecular biology. Molecular biology as a whole is about understanding the parts and processes of life in sufficiently complete detail, which in practice means at the atomic level, to predict the effect of alterations. In so doing it is continuing the process, begun by organic chemistry, of bridging the once-perceived chasm between living and non-living matter. At one time the very molecules of life were thought to be special, requiring the intervention of a ‘vital force’ for their synthesis. So when in 1828 Friedrich Wöhler synthesized the organic substance urea from inorganic materials it was the beginning of a revolution in thinking, a first demonstration that the molecules of life are not sacrosanct in themselves. But for long after that the elaborate organization of living things remained daunting and mysterious, and left plenty of room for vitalism as a respectable concept. It has only been through the triumphs of molecular biology (really just another term for the chemistry of life) in the second half of the twentieth century that we have begun to see our own bodies as exquisitely comprehensible machinery. It would be unwise to predict that this understanding will ever be complete, but there will be a convergence for practical purposes.

An interesting feature of the current stage of knowledge is that we are recognizing that we cannot necessarily distill our comprehension into a simple and elegant theory, as Darwin distilled the theory of evolution from his observations of Galapagos finches and domestic pigeons, but that we can describe it and model it. An important element in the origin of genomics was the willingness to take that step, to say that we really do have to read all this sequence, find all these genes, if we are going to make a model that works. One can argue about whether having a model amounts to real understanding or not. It’s interesting that even mathematics has taken this step for some proofs, as in the case of the four-color map theorem. This asserts that any map, no matter how complex, can be drawn in just four colors such that no two areas of the same color share a

boundary. One part of the proof of this theorem requires a computer to search through a large set of possibilities: no elegant analytical solution to this part has yet been found. Biologists need not feel uncomfortable that they have to deal similarly with the inventions of the blind watchmaker of evolution. I think that we can reasonably equate prediction with understanding; but, like the mathematicians, biologists have to use computers to sift the information.

A key discovery of molecular biology was that DNA is the hereditary material, that it encodes the instructions to make each living organism and that it is possible to read out the code into a computer. The central task of the Human Genome Project has been simply to read that code as accurately as possible. Of course, we want to understand it fully as well, but that will be a much longer process involving the whole community of biologists.

Apart from its importance as a foundation for the future, our ability to read out the sequence of our own genome has the makings of a philosophical paradox. Can an intelligent being comprehend the instructions to make itself? So far we understand the code so imperfectly that we aren’t yet facing that paradox, but there’s every reason to anticipate that we shall do so in the not-too-distant future. To put this in perspective, the next big idea will probably be the understanding of the mind—or, more precisely, how the brain computes the mind. It is at this point that the real philosophical paradox of the intelligent organism will arise. Perhaps that is the reason why some say it will never be reached. But then, no one person fully understands the working of a large aircraft or a complex computer. We shall get there by modelling, using computers and understanding one piece at a time. Our understanding of the brain will parallel our modelling of it, but in this case the model, if it works, really will be a brain in its own right.

Not everyone finds such a prospect comfortable. Indeed, there is quite a widespread feeling that science has already gone too far—that it has outstripped human ability to comprehend or control it,

and that it must be shackled firmly to social needs, with no opportunity for discoveries that may cause trouble. For example, the difficult dilemmas of prenatal choice, outlined in the previous chapter, may be felt to be the result of science unnecessarily opening Pandora’s Box.

However, we can’t have it both ways. Scientific method, driven by a desire to explore the unknown, has proved remarkably effective at increasing human understanding of the natural world. It has played a huge role in the development of human culture, and for centuries has contributed in the most fundamental way to philosophy. Awareness of the facts of the universe around me has a huge influence on the way I think about the human situation. Through science, humanity is pushing back the boundaries of ignorance, so that the big questions (‘Why are we here?’ or ‘What is good and what is bad?’) can be posed more precisely, framed in a larger area of knowledge. I don’t find it unsatisfying that we have not yet arrived at absolute answers to these big questions, and indeed may never do so. There is so much still to find out that they can wait; for the present, what we’ve already found out gives us plenty to think about.

The past century has seen a split between the sciences and the humanities. Many no longer perceive science as culture. I think much of this attitude is due to science becoming more and more equated with technology, to the extent that in many quarters its sole purpose is seen as technological development. This has become an integral part of its funding structure, so that scientists are encouraged to exploit their discoveries commercially, regardless of social consequences. Worse, the development and exploitation are driven by short-term profit, pitting individuals, companies and nations in competition with one another in a frenzied rush for next quarter’s bottom line.

But it is not Pandora’s Box that science opens; it is, rather, a treasure chest. We, humanity, can choose whether or not to take out

the discoveries and use them, and for what purpose. Leaving the chest closed is not an option. Apart from anything else, if some of us don’t open the chest visibly and benignly, others will do so secretly and perhaps malignly. Most of the treasures within can be used for either good or ill, but until we’ve seen them how can we tell? So we must never hold back from exploring. This is our joy and our future as the human race. This is not, of course, true just for scientists. We all without exception know curiosity, the excitement of discovery and understanding, the thrill of doing new things. Knowledge itself is a good: more is always better. But the application of knowledge is a choice, and we have individual and collective responsibility for that choice. Our economic structures are getting in the way of responsible choice, because they drive us to equate discoveries with technology, and to assume that exploitation of knowledge is inevitable. There is no easy solution, but the first step is to recognize the problem.

The history of the human genome sequence illustrates how important it is that we keep clear this distinction between discovery and technology—between science and its commercial application. A high priority for the Human Genome Project has been to keep the genome data completely free. But why is this so important? Why can’t it be owned, and why shouldn’t at least some restriction on redistribution be allowable, so that the originator of the information can be protected from competition? Many commentators have seen the public project as unreasonable in pressing for the absence of even the latter clause. This is an important matter, because in our society information is more and more the stuff of wealth creation, and the genome is just one example of information that has to be managed equitably.

My first response is that the genome sequence is a discovery, not an invention. Like a mountain or a stream, it is a natural object that was here, if not before we were, at least before we were aware of its existence. I am one of those who feel that the earth is a common good, and is better not owned by anyone, though almost all of us

fence off small parts of it for particular uses. Daphne and I ‘own’ half an acre of land, and though you are very welcome to come and visit I don’t expect you to tear up our crops or capture the birds that perch in its trees. But we really only have it on lease; I hope it won’t happen, but if there is a democratic decision to build a road through our garden then it will be taken over. A majority of people agree that there should be large tracts of wild places kept aside that belong to no one person but where any of us can go. This compromise works on the basis that we don’t have to go everywhere all the time, but that if an area proves important because it’s especially scenic, say, or is home to a rare species, then it can be protected as a public good. Of course, we shall always continue to argue about the balance between private land and public land, and the uses to which both can be put.

The human genome is a much more extreme case of the same thing. We all carry our personal copies of it around with us, and every part of it is unique. You can’t ever say that you own a gene, because then you’d be owning one of my genes as well. And you can’t say, ‘Well, we can share the genes between us,’ because we both need all our genes. A patent, of course, does not give you literal ownership of a gene, but it does specifically give you the right to prevent others from using that gene for any commercial purpose. It seems to me that your fencing off of a gene should be confined strictly to an application that you are working on—to an inventive step. I, or someone else, may want to work on an alternative application, and so need to have access to the gene as well. I can’t go away and invent a human gene. So all the discovered part of genes—the sequence, the functions, everything—needs to be kept pre-competitive and free of property rights. After all, part of the point of the patent system is to stimulate competition. Anyone who wants to make a better mousetrap has to invent around existing mousetrap patents. You can’t invent around a discovery; you can only invent around other inventions. As we saw in the last chapter, the most valuable applications for a gene are often far down the line from the

first, easy, ones, so this is not just a matter of principle but has extremely important consequences.

In March 2000 Human Genome Sciences, the company set up alongside TIGR in 1992 (TIGR severed the connection five years later), announced that it had been granted a patent on a gene called CCR5, which encodes a receptor on the cell surface. When the company first applied for the patent it did not know what the receptor did. While the patent was pending, a group of publicly funded researchers within the National Institutes of Health had discovered that some people with defects in this gene were resistant to infection with the AIDS virus HIV. CCR5, in other words, appears to be one of the gateways the virus uses to enter cells. As soon as they heard about the discovery, Human Genome Sciences was able to confirm the role of CCR5 through experiments and have the patent issued. It thereby claimed ownership of the rights to the use of the gene for any purpose. The company has now sold licenses to several pharmaceutical companies to develop drugs and vaccines based on this knowledge. But who made the inventive step? The company that made a lucky match to a randomly selected EST? Or the publicly funded researchers who identified that in people resistant to HIV the gene was defective? William Haseltine at Human Genome Sciences argues that patents stimulate progress in medical research, and the CCR5 patent may well lead to a new drug or vaccine against HIV. But a survey of researchers in United States university labs found that many had been deterred from working on particular gene targets because of the fear that they might have to pay large license fees to companies—or risk being sued.

The guidelines on patenting genes in the United States have recently been clarified to give a somewhat tighter definition of utility—the use must be ‘substantial, specific and credible’—and rule out the most speculative applications, but they still allow sequences to be patented on such grounds as that they can be used as probes for a known disease gene, for example. The European Patent Directive,

approved by the European Parliament in 1998, accepts that a sequence or partial sequence of a gene is eligible for a ‘composition of matter’ patent once it has been replicated outside the human body—say, copied in bacteria as we do for sequencing. This argument has always seemed to me absurd. The essence of a gene is the information—the sequence—and copying it into another format makes no difference. It is as though I took a hardback book that you had written, published it in paperback, and called it mine because the binding is different.

At the moment, the practice of granting biological patents is not heeding the distinction between discovery and invention, largely because of the immaturity of the field. Twenty years ago patents in biology were almost unknown, and it took a major investment to find a single gene. Now there is a genome gold rush as the industrial potential of the new developments is recognized and indeed overblown, and finding genes can be a matter of spending five minutes at a computer keyboard. The number of applications for gene patents on humans and other organisms has passed half a million, and several thousand such patents have been granted. But the issue of gene patents remains complex and confused. The United States Patent and Trademark Office accepts that a gene discovery is patentable, and until the recent changes would grant patents even on partial gene fragments whose only claimed utility was as ‘a gene probe.’ The European Patent Office was more doubtful about gene patents until the European Union issued its 1998 patent directive, which explicitly permitted the patenting of gene sequences. However, several EU member states, particularly France, are opposed to gene patenting and have challenged the directive. Meanwhile other European countries, of which the U.K. is one, feel that they must encourage a more liberal line on patenting so that their biotechnology industries can remain competitive with those in the United States.

I realized long ago that trying to reach an equitable solution using

moral or even legal arguments was doomed to failure, and that the best way to prevent the sequence being carved up by private interests was to put it into the public domain so that, in patent office jargon, as much as possible became ‘prior art’ and therefore unpatentable by others. And I think we in the international sequencing consortium succeeded in doing that as far as the raw sequence was concerned. Now, by making the annotated sequence available through Ensembl and other genome browsers, we are pushing the bar still higher by putting information about gene function in the public domain.

But the bar is not high enough yet. For example, although wouldbe patentees must demonstrate a credible use for a gene sequence before they can patent it, it is generally assumed that the patent then applies to all uses for that sequence, not just the one cited in the application. It will take a legal challenge to establish whether this is correct, but in the meantime it is a disincentive to further research on the sequence concerned. But it seems unlikely to me that patent laws combined with untrammelled market forces are going to lead to a resolution that is in the best interests of further research, or of human health and well-being. Surely there is a case for governments to regulate what’s going on? I would prefer to see patents restricted to specific tests and drugs; but if this is too idealistic, a pragmatic step would be to make gene patents subject to compulsory licensing with affordable royalty payments, so that no company could monopolize part of the genome and charge exorbitant fees for its use.

In due course all this hyperactivity will settle down, but for the moment there is the atmosphere of a lottery as everyone tries to buy a winning ticket. As well as patenting human genes, companies are staking claims on natural products used for centuries in the developing world, giving rise to justified accusations of ‘biopiracy.’ For example, Western companies have been granted over 100 patents on various uses of the neem tree, whose seeds, twigs and leaves have been used in India for centuries in health care and agriculture. Antibiopiracy campaigners won a significant victory in May 2000, when

the European Patent Office revoked a six-year-old patent held by the United States Department of Agriculture and the agrochemical company W.R.Grace for the use of extracts of neem seeds as a fungicide. The Patent Office accepted that this use was not novel and involved no invention—but it took a protracted legal battle to win the case.

Understandably appalled by what is going on, some have proposed to draw a patent line between life and non-life. While agreeing with the concerns, and with the urgent need for a value other than a commercial one to be placed on living things, I think there is no case for this particular line. Because the chasm that previously existed between the biological and the chemical is being filled in, such a distinction will not be sustainable. Yet surely we should not be patenting whole life forms, such as transgenic mice or cotton plants? True, but not just because they are life forms: a sounder reason is that we have not invented the organism, only the specific change that makes them susceptible to cancer (in the case of the mouse) or resistant to pests (in the case of the cotton). Very probably at some point we shall invent new life forms, but that’s for the future. All that should be patented now are the modifications that are being made, which are truly inventive steps.

You may feel that this line of argument implies a disrespect for life. But I think that any such concern is a result of the increasing tendency of our society to define the value of everything in financial terms, and to assume that any form of exploitation is justifiable if it shows a profit. This is a separate and larger issue, to which we shall return later.

A second response to the question of why we need to keep sequence information free is the need for it to be easily exchanged between researchers, which we have already touched on. The future of biology is strongly bound up with bioinformatics: that is, the field of research that collects biological data of all kinds, and tries to make sense of the data as a whole, and to make predictions. This activity

is essential to give wide access to the data, and to complement and connect with the work of the experimental biologists. Analysis of sequence is one of the foundations of bioinformatics, because the data are stored in computers anyway, and self-evidently need analysis. Computers also analyze the three-dimensional structure of proteins, and tackle the challenge of predicting how that structure will emerge from the folding of a chain of amino acids. Then there are the interactions among the molecules, which build up the actual shape of cells and organisms. Most difficult of all, perhaps, is to understand how all this is controlled, a field which is only just beginning to be explored.

Putting all this together, we can say that the ultimate aim of biology is to compute an organism from its genes (being mindful of the role of the environment and random factors in development): to understand all the processes so well that we can predict the whole from the sequence, just as the mechanisms of our bodies do. To do this completely is a far-off dream, but large sections of the problem will be solved in the coming decades, and this is the most important single reason for acquiring the sequence in the first place.

In order to move forward with this enterprise, which is not only fascinating science but will translate into medical advances as it goes forward, the basic data need to be freely available to everyone to interpret, change and pass on, just as in the open source model for software. The situation is too complex for this to be done piecemeal, with limited amounts of data being let out at a time and a single enterprise always holding the key. Although we concluded in 2000 that we were unable to enforce free redistribution of data through some kind of ‘copyleft’ license, since the data were not ours to make rules about, we could insist that our own right to make them initially available in this way was not compromised by any agreement we might make. That is why the talks of December 1999 came to nothing.

I expect that the public data will continue to be the ultimate resource, because as well as being available to all they will be continually enriched by the free interactions surrounding them. The only danger is that, being free, the data can be picked up and presented as belonging to someone else, just like my paperback copy of your book in the absence of copyright law. This could allow a company bent on gaining a monopoly position to add public data to its own and then claim that, as its product is superior, publicly funded sequencing and analysis are unnecessary. The defense is for us all, but scientists in particular, to be aware of what’s going on and not be gulled by the claims to greater efficiency made by private enterprise, which on close examination usually come down to presentation. Make no mistake: publicly funded science is extremely efficient because it is ruthlessly competitive, as we have seen in the case of the HGP. The success of the Sanger Centre and the other big genome labs has shown that size is not an issue: the often-heard notion that only industry can handle large-scale science is incorrect.

Another potential threat to academic freedom is the courting of corporate donors by cash-strapped universities. When Nottingham University accepted nearly £4 million from British American Tobacco to fund an International Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility’, 85 percent of respondents to a poll in the British Medical Journal condemned the university for taking the money. The editor of the BMJ, Richard Smith, resigned from the post he held at the university as professor of medical journalism. But all universities now hold contracts with industrial sponsors out of sheer necessity; the question is to what extent the sponsors thereby gain control over what is and what is not discovered. Contracts typically protect the researcher’s right to publish. But once a department is dependent for jobs and research funding on a certain source of revenue, what happens at renewal time? The pressure to be accommodating is then huge.

I don’t want to sound hysterical about this. The art of running a

great university is to extract funds from all possible sources and to balance them against one another so as to assure one’s independence. Astronomy was founded by people whose patrons thought they were studying astrology on their behalf. But it’s necessary not to be too greedy, to work sufficiently within one’s limitations that one can afford to say no to excessive pressure.

The pressure to exploit comes not only from companies but from government and charitable funders, both of which are anxious on the one hand to use their finite resources as sparingly as possible and on the other to provide a justification for their activities. In the U.K., for example, since the mid-1990s the research councils have been specifically charged with supporting work that will contribute to ‘wealth creation and the quality of life.’

The commercial and competitive pressures on academics today are alarming. And if academics are not independent, who will be society’s impartial experts? To maintain the system, scientists need constantly to reaffirm collectively that open communication works and is necessary for their research to prosper.

Am I claiming too much for the co-operativeness of most scientists? Good science is a free-market and freelance sort of enterprise. Restrictions and planning are anathema to it, and anarchy is an essential part of the process. Anyone can challenge anything, and you’re only as good as your last five years. (In business and politics the credibility span is pretty short also, and maybe society suffers from the resulting short-termism.) As far as funding goes, many scientists are adapted like desert plants, putting out long roots in all directions; when the rain falls they suck it up fast, and flower. Furthermore, the origins of science are in industry as well as philosophy, an activity of artisans and industrialists as well as intellectuals. I should beware the lessons of the Greek empire, in which thought was elevated to such a degree that it became separated from action, which was the preserve of the slaves. So the philosophy of the Greeks lost touch with reality, and in the end they

had to submit to the newly pragmatic Romans.

So this is not a call for science to be run by committee—that would be counterproductive. It’s purely about the ethic of science, which recognizes the commonality of the ever-growing body of knowledge and the need for it to be freely available to all, for any purpose.

The events described in this book are part of a much larger picture. It was not, as I fondly imagined at the beginning, simply a matter of sequencing the human genome and making the data available. This was naive. I’d thought of the Human Genome Project as being an uncluttered and altruistic activity, but found instead that others viewed it as a stepping stone on the route to commercial profit or political power. I was forced to realize that in our society one can get into trouble for giving away something that can make money. I began to notice parallel tragedies unfolding, stories in which I was not personally involved but which drew me into discussion of areas outside my own small expertise.

After the June announcement, David Bryer, then director of Oxfam, wrote to ask if I would be interested in a meeting. He enclosed a copy of their recent report to the government on globalization, which echoed my own thoughts so accurately that I was stunned. Daphne and I are lifetime supporters of Oxfam, and although I had no idea how I could contribute it seemed a good idea to explore. So one freezing, foggy morning I drove over to Oxford. We talked, and I gave a seminar over lunch. It was very well attended, and evidently the Human Genome Project and the events surrounding it were of great interest to the researchers there. For my part, I found a group of wise and thoughtful people who saw clearly that it was no good drilling artesian wells and distributing food without paying equivalent attention to the long-term causes of poverty. And their thoughts had come inexorably to the subject of world trade and the manner in which the economic practices of the

World Trade Organization were actually increasing the gap between rich and poor in the world rather than narrowing it, which must surely be the only sane course if we wish to continue inhabiting the planet.

In particular, they were about to embark on a new campaign to arrest the savage implementation of the WTO’s agreement on trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights (TRIPs). This agreement provides for the universal extension of patent law, with the full protection of inventors’ rights for 20 years worldwide. If carried through, it would ensure a large and immediate increase in the cost of medicines in the poorest countries, because they are at present dependent upon buying generic (non-branded) drugs made by companies in India, Egypt, Brazil, and elsewhere, and these sources would be challenged by the patent-holders forthwith. The consequences for the fight against major killers such as AIDS and dysentery would be devastating.

The argument here is different from that over patenting genes. The drugs, at least in the particular applications for which the companies are making them, are legitimate objects of patent law. It is rather the hasty and over-zealous implementation of the TRIPs agreement against those who are unable to defend themselves that Oxfam is criticizing. As in the case of the debt burden of poor countries, the rich may well pause and say to themselves ‘Is this ethical, this application of our laws indiscriminately to all? And is it even good business practice, seeing that it will make the world an even less stable place than it is already?’

The WTO defends its position by pointing out correctly that there are built-in safeguards to the TRIPs agreement, by which in case of urgent medical need countries can make special arrangements. The difficulty is that, as always in the pursuit of justice, those who have the money to pay for skilled lawyers are at an advantage. South Africa and Brazil found that they were facing lengthy lawsuits to establish their rights in this regard, and were at the same

time being threatened with trade reprisals if they dared to press their case. The power of the rich countries and of the transnational corporations was being used in a bullying and inequitable fashion to achieve ends that benefit them rather than mankind as a whole.

I was happy to be associated with the campaign, for it echoed on a global scale the issues we had fought out over the genome. During 2001 there were extensive discussions of these issues, and a major court victory over the drug companies in South Africa, but these are only preliminary steps; the vested interests that gestated the TRIPs agreement are alive, vigorous, and no doubt regrouping. For patents, successfully defended, mean money.

The big transnational corporations are now more powerful than many governments. Their strength is apparent everywhere we turn, and especially in their collective lobbying in the capitals of rich nations. Maybe we’re moving towards a world where national governments, elected or otherwise, no longer count. Or at least they will count only for local affairs, rather as local councils do now: local cooperatives, nothing more. I hope this isn’t true, but the warning signs are there.

Will anything else offset the power of companies, and provide some democratic limitation to their ambitions? A likely source of balance is from the non-governmental organizations (NGOs), such as Oxfam. The largest of them are already transnational, too. Like companies, they are controlled by those who invest in them; but unlike companies, their aims are ethical rather than financial. It’s strange and uncomfortable for me to think that democracy may one day be practiced through this balance of power, but the signs are that it’s a real phenomenon.

We are often told that the enterprise of science pays too little attention to the consequences of its discoveries and the concerns of society. Should scientists see themselves as part of a worldwide NGO, upholding a set of shared values? I think that’s exactly the way they used to be: in previous centuries, as wars ebbed and flowed,

the intellectuals made their own independent way around the world. And actually that international fellowship is by no means gone, but it’s threatened when people try to walk both sides of the line, mingling scientific contribution with profit-making activity. The two do not mix well, which is why there have to be rules to keep them identifiably separate. Science itself, as well as society, will be the poorer if commercial imperatives are allowed to dictate our terms of reference.

The truth is that companies don’t have to behave ethically: they can if they want to, but there’s no social constraint on their pushing acquisitiveness to the legal limit; or indeed beyond, in that the cost in fines of an action that breaks legal bounds can be estimated and written off against the likely gains. Similarly, the legal constraints on claims made in advertisements and press releases are continually pressed, and sometimes overreached. And in our overly PR-conscious society there is little questioning of a smooth presentation. Half truth that is branded with a recognized name and laminated to cover the cracks is rated more highly than unvarnished fact.

Of course, in the commercial world this is absolutely natural and right. The job of publicly quoted companies is to maximize their profits. They may, and often do, achieve this aim by taking a long-term view, contributing to good causes, treating their workers well, and so forth. But all these things must be justified by the eventual return on the balance sheet. A company that behaves in any other way will be displaced or will be bought out by a more competitive rival. It is both the strength and the limitation of capitalism that this is so. If we collectively want a company to provide a public good we have to specify how it will be delivered. It’s no use leaving the company to set the rules.

We in Western society are going through a period of intensifying belief in private ownership, to the detriment of the public good. Individual selfishness is held up as the best way to advance civilization, and through the process of globalization these beliefs are being

exported to the world as a whole, making it not only less just but also less safe. For it’s not only the companies. As nations, too, we are unable to take sensible collective decisions when the only rules we know for bargaining are those of competitive greed. It cannot be right that the wars currently being waged in some of the poorest countries in the world depend on weapons sold to their armies by the richest, including my own; that we are unnecessarily destroying natural resources for lack of cooperative exploitation; that we are unable to reach accord on global warming because it might slightly reduce the economic growth of the world’s richest nation; and that the disparity in healthcare between rich and poor is widening all the time.

And as this story shows, the same greed nearly succeeded in privatizing the human genome, our own code, and indeed remains a threat to it. But the Human Genome Project has achieved its first target, to have the draft human sequence out and available for all to use, and that is a splendid victory. It’s moving on fast to its next target—to produce an accurate, finished sequence—and that is secure and nearly complete.

Whatever happens, let nobody be tempted to rewrite history. The struggle over the human genome was necessary, and things would not be the same today had not the public project stood firm.

The discoveries arising from the human sequence mount up all the time, but that isn’t really the point. The important thing is that it has entered the fabric of biology, and, like the worm map and sequence before it, will soon no longer be visible as a separate item. That is as it should be. People often talk about the post-genomic era. Wrong. It’s merely the post-hype era. The sequence is now a crucial element in a free and open system of biological information that will allow knowledge to increase and benefits to accrue faster than in any other way.

It is our inalienable heritage.

It is humanity’s common thread.