The Common Thread: A Story of Science, Politics, Ethics, and the Human Genome (2002)
Chapter: Photos
At the Laboratory of Molecular Biology in the 1970s, Sydney Brenner’s plan to trace the lineage of the nematode worm Caenorhabditis elegans (1) became a reality. Drawings of dividing cells (2) filled my notebooks. Bob Horvitz (3) and Judith Kimble (4) also worked on the worm lineage and later set up their own worm labs in the US. (5) Sydney himself (left) succeeded Max Perutz (right) as director of the LMB in 1979.
Bob Waterston (4) started to collaborate with us in 1985 and we have worked together ever since. Unimpressive at first sight, the map of the worm genome we stuck up on the wall at Cold Spring Harbor (5) prefaced the launch of international large-scale genome sequencing, celebrated by Bill Sanderson’s 1990 cartoon in New Scientist (6). The LMB’s new director Aaron Klug (7) gave us his full support.
The centre was run by the board of management (4): in 2000 it consisted of (back row) Bart Barrell, Murray Cairns, Alan Coulson, Mike Stratton; (front row) Jane Rogers, John Sulston, David Bentley and Richard Durbin. At the first international strategy meeting in Bermuda, a handwritten overhead (5) outlined the principles of free release of human genomic data.
(4) At the hardcore analysis group meeting in Philadelphia in October 2000 we worked on the draft publication (left to right) Richard Gibbs, Evan Eichler, Francis Collins and Eric Lander), which finally appeared in February 2001 (5). At the 12 February Washington press conference, Eric Lander (6, right) explained who had done what, and how.
With the future of the genome secure, I retired in 2000 and received a wonderful send-off in the form of a Sanger Centre pantomime (1). My successor was Allan Bradley from Baylor College of Medicine in Houston (2, right).
Sequencing goes on, but the centre is shifting its focus towards biological problems, such as Mike Stratton’s work on the genetic basis of cancer (3). Meanwhile the genome has passed into contemporary culture: in February 2001 the artist Marc Quinn (4, right) used my DNA in his new work for the National Portrait Gallery.