The Gene Wars: Science, Politics, and the Human Genome - Tapa dura

The Human Genome Project aims to map all the genes spelled out by the entire three-billion-letter genetic code embodied in the DNA of human cells. The multi-billion-dollar project, estimated to last for ten to 20 years, has already proved to be a subject of considerable controversy. In this account of the protracted struggle to launch the genome project, the author unravels the tangled scientific and political threads of the story, relying on primary documents gathered as events unfolded and supplemented by interviews with all the main players. The result is a case study on a project with far-reaching medical and ethical implications.

Robert Cook-Deegan became Director of the IGSP's Center for Genome Ethics, Law & Policy in July 2002. He was previously director of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Policy Fellowship program (2000-2002) at the Institute of Medicine (IOM), National Academy of Sciences, a Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Investigator at Georgetown University (1999-2002), and a seminar leader at Stanford-in-Washington (1996-2003). He worked at The National Academies in various capacities from 1991 until coming to Duke. He is the author of The Gene Wars: Science, Politics, and the Human Genome (New York: Norton, 1994; paperback 1996; tr. Korean 1995, Japanese 1996) and an author on over 200 articles. Dr. Cook-Deegan was a member of the Board of Directors, Physicians for Human Rights, 1988-1996, with whom he participated in human rights missions to Turkey, Iraq and Panama. In 1996, Dr. Cook-Deegan was a Cecil and Ida Green Fellow at the University of Texas, Dallas, following his work for the report Allocating Federal Funds for Science and Technology (the "Press Report"). From 1991-4, he directed IOM' s Division of Biobehavioral Sciences and Mental Disorders. He worked for the National Center for Human Genome Research 1989-90, after serving Acting Executive Director of the Biomedical Ethics Advisory Committee of the U.S. Congress 1988-9. Dr. Cook-Deegan was a AAAS Congressional Science & Engineering Fellow 1982-3 and spent six years at the congressional Office of Technology Assessment. This followed two years of postdoctoral research on the molecular biology of oncogenes with Lasker Award scientist Raymond L. Erikson, after completing his internship in pathology at the University of Colorado. He received his MD degree from the University of Colorado in 1979 and his bachelor' s degree in chemistry, magna cum laude, in 1975 from Harvard College. He grew up in Denver.