Review: A Quest for the Code of Life, Liz Fletcher and Roy Porter, The Wellcome Trust, Pp. 102, London, 1997, £5.

Scientists at the Wellcome Trust Genome Campus are currently making the largest single contribution to the Human Genome Project and hope to have sequenced over a sixth of the human genome by the year 2002. This book describes the Campus, at Hinxton in Cambridgeshire, and the work being done there. It also includes a short biography of Sir Henry Wellcome whose legacy led to the foundation of the Trust and a chapter on the history of Hinxton which archaeological finds on the site of the Campus show was once a thriving Anglo-Saxon settlement.

The final chapter "Modern genetics in perspective" is an account of mankind’s attempts to understand illness from classical times to the present day. Galton is mentioned, rather briefly considering his seminal contributions to human genetics. The suggestion, at the end, that the 21st century could be the age when the burden of genetic disorders is finally lifted from mankind seems rather optimistic. Mutations will continue to occur and the possible build-up of deleterious genes in the population as a result of treatments for genetic disorders could well be a danger in itself.

The illustrations are many and superb, and alone worth the price. Included in them is an embroidery produced by the Eugenics Society to explain Mendel’s Law. I would have liked an index but this is a small criticism and the Wellcome Trust is to be congratulated on publishing such an inexpensive, but far from cheaply produced, book which is well worth reading.

John Timson