J. Craig Venter (1946–). From Wikimedia Commons, user Margoz.

Francis Collins (1950–). From Wikimedia Commons, user Magnus Manske.

President William Clinton (1946–). From Wikimedia Commons, user Kmccoy.

Genome design is going to be a key part of the future. That's why we need fast, cheap, accurate DNA synthesis, so you can make a lot of iterations of something and test them.

—J. Craig Venter, CEO, The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR)1

One must dig deeply into opposing points of view in order to know whether your own position remains defensible. Iron sharpens iron.

—Francis Collins, director, International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium²

Fix it. Make those guys work together.

—William Jefferson Clinton, in F. Golden and M. D. Lemonick, “The Race Is Over,” Time, July 23, 2003

Our previous efforts to make science attractive and accessible focused primarily on ideas and secondarily on the people who created the ideas. This book reverses the emphasis: people first, ideas second.

Should amount to the same thing, right?

Nope. Our research for this project revealed fascinating contentions among scientists pursuing similar subjects, helpful cooperation between some of them, and connections that led to new ideas. You will see examples of passion, greed, espionage, commitment, jealousy, sexism, impatience, obsession, animosity, envy, racism, and audacity as this parade of people pursue the puzzle of the natural world.

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Ideas change, but human interactions remain quite similar. The same atoms that Aristotle and Democritus argued about comprise the human genome that Venter and Collins raced to analyze.

In most chapters we've included a reference to “bonus” materials on a particular topic, in the form of videos, websites, or books. Please refer to the To Dig Deeper section for more interesting details.

We hope your view of science will be as enriched by this project as much as ours has been. Enjoy your journey through the history of science as you meet the fascinating people who made that history.

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