A Life Decoded: My Genome: My Life

Science News,  Jan 5, 2008  

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A LIFE DECODED: My Genome: My Life

J. CRAIG VENTER

In this "bad boy gone good" autobiography, J. Craig Venter tells of how he went from being a self-proclaimed adrenaline junkie who skipped school to catch waves to the man who raced against the National Institutes of Health to sequence the human genome. That genome was Venter's own, and it's woven throughout this story in sidebars, driving home the idea that nature has a lot to do with the supposed choices we make. For example, Venter attributes the fact that he never became addicted to pot or alcohol while serving as a Navy medic in the Vietnam War to his particular variation of the dopamine receptor gene, (DZ) DRDZ, which has been linked to substance abuse, Like the human genome, multiples pack this book--multiple wives, multiple biotech companies, multiple yacht races, multiple microbial sequences within a water droplet, and multiple political disputes that Venter waged against the head of the Human Genome Project and Nobel laureate James Watson, to name but a few. Viking, 2007, 390 p., color photos, hardcover, $25.95.

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