An account of what has been described as the single most important scientific breakthrough of modern times - the elucidation of mankind's complete genetic script. It is a story in which science, politics, business and society meet head on. At its heart is the race between the three billion Human Genome Project led by the brilliant geneticist Francis Collins and a renegade biotech company founded by scientist-entrepreneur J. Craig Venter. When the Human Genome Project, a 15-year joint project between the US and UK governments, was launched in 1990, it was inconceivable that anyone else would have the technology, the expertise or the financial resources to even enter the race, much less win it. In 1998 Venter announced that his company Celera would use high-powered sequencing machines to complete the sequence from scratch in three years. This book takes the reader into the labs and lives of the two men who making history. Regardless of who "wins" the race, this is a discovery that will revolutionize our lives.