Charting the genome.

W" TThen historians of the future ponder the twentieth century WV what will they focus on as its central hallmarks? The holocaust, with its frightening reminder of the fragility of human decency? The rise and fall of communism? The end of the colonial era and the triumphs and trials of the newly independent nations? The women's movement, with its profound effects on one half of our species?" Thus spoke Sir Gustav Nossal, director of the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, Melbourne, chairing a recent symposium in Berne that was held to mark the 40th anniversary of the Ciba Foundation. He suggested that all of these issues would be transcended by anotherthe rise of science and technology as the dominant forces shaping society and dictating the international agenda. He might have added that the subject of the symposium (human genetic informationscience, law, and ethics) would assume paramount importance even among the more spectacular peaks of twentieth century science and their social relations. By any standards charting a genome consisting of 4000 million nucleotide building blocks is a massive undertaking; it becomes truly momentous when that genome belongs to the species doing the charting and when the results will inevitably locate genes responsible not only for diseases but also for countless other human traits that may be considered desirable or undesirable.