Watson’s Genomes: 1990–

“I would only once have the opportunity to let my scientific life encompass a path from double helix to the three billion steps of the human genome,” said Jim Watson. The sequencing of the human genome was a tour de force. Controversial at the outset for its potential to change the nature of biology, the project gained acceptance and impetus when Watson became director of the Human Genome Project. A vast team effort, bringing the intrusion of Big Science into biology, it was a revolution in style as well as substance. The pace with which the human, and other, genomes have been sequenced has astounded even the participants. While no single person could therefore be described as responsible, it is in a sense the culmination of the idea inherent in the double helix model that the sequence of DNA is important because it carries information. The real revolution is that DNA sequencing has become a routine tool not only in science but also in medicine.