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Journal issue in original printed wrappers. First edition of the first announcement of the sequencing of the human genome by the Human Genome Project, complete with 'The Geography of Our Genome' poster, The Human Genome Project CD, produced by the National Institutes of Health, and a large folding colour plate giving a detailed overview of the features of the draft human genome. The human genome section is pp. 813--958 of the issue and includes the seminal article 'Initial sequencing and analysis of the human genome' by the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium, in which the results of an international collaboration to produce and make freely available a draft sequence of the human genome are presented, together with an initial analysis of the data, describing some of the insights that can be gleaned from the sequence. Two groups, using quite different techniques, competed to sequence the entire genome: the publicly funded international collaborative Human Genome Project using a mapping technique, and Craig Venter's private company Celera using shotgun sequencing. The Human Genome Project published its draft in the present issue of Nature a day before Venter's article 'The sequence of the human genome' appeared in Science, thereby preventing Venter from patenting the genetic information and restricting its redistribution and scientific use. Both drafts of the human genome sequence were at the time incomplete, but the implications for studying human diseases and for biotechnology were already profound. As Nobel prizewinner John Sulston admitted, the reasons for publishing were political rather than scientific. The draft sequences of the human genome were remarkable achievements. They provide an outline of the information needed to create a human being and show, for the first time, the overall organization of a vertebrate's DNA. The human genome holds an extraordinary trove of information about human development, physiology, medicine, and evolution. Comparing the human genome sequences with those of other species will not only reveal what makes us genetically different, it may also help us understand what our genes do. A fine copy of this landmark publication. Seller Inventory # ABE-047
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