Celebration and shame

The completion of the first draft of the human genome may be the most important medical discovery since the BMJ began, more important than the discovery of the circulation of the blood or of antibiotics (p 7). Mike Dexter of the Wellcome Trust, which funded the British part of the genome project, has gone even further, suggesting it's more important than the invention of the wheel: “I can well imagine technology making the wheel obsolete. But this code is the essence of mankind, and as long as humans exist this code going to be important …