British scientist wins Nobel Prize for 'book of life'

The scientist who led Britain’s contribution to the “book of life” – the blueprint of human DNA – was awarded the Nobel Prize for medicine today.

Sir John Sulston, former director of the Wellcome Trust Sanger Centre at Hinxton, Cambridgshire, shares the honour with ex-colleague Dr Sydney Brenner, now based in the United States.

Co-laureate American H. Robert Horvitz was also cited in the announcement in Stockholm, Sweden, home of the Nobel prizes.

The prize, which has the official title “for medicine or physiology”, is worth about £650,000 (€1.36m).

All three men were recognised for their discoveries concerning “genetic regulation of organ development and programmed cell death”.

Their work, which hinged around studies of a tiny nematode worm, identified key genes regulating organ development and the programmed death of cells.

It gave rise to discoveries which shed new light on the development of many diseases, including Aids, neurodegenerative disorders, and strokes and provided new insights into genetics.

Sir John led the 500-strong Sanger Centre team which, as part of the international Human Genome Project, sequenced a third of the human genome – the complex pattern of chemicals that makes up our DNA.

Part of the genome consists of genes which contain all the coded instructions for creating a human being.

Publication of the first working draft of the human genome two years ago marked a milestone in science and turned the unassuming John Sulston – then plain Dr Sulston – into a celebrity.

Sir John believed passionately that the human genome information should be freely available to everyone, putting him at odds with rival American gene-mapper Craig Venter.

After a bitterly fought race, the Human Genome Project and Venter’s company Celera Genomics, of Rockville, Maryland, finally unveiled their respective versions of the genome together on June 26, 2000.

Sir John said he was ``surprised and delighted'' at winning the prize.

But he wanted to emphasise the importance of the work carried out by his laureate colleagues, Dr Brenner and Dr Horvitz.

All three had worked together at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge the 1970s.

“I’m very surprised and obviously delighted,” Sir John said at the Sanger Centre today.

“It’s something that grew out of work with Sydney Brenner and Bob Horvitz in the 1970s, really as far as my contribution was concerned, but clearly it has been the foundation for a great deal more, and that’s extremely delightful.

“I do feel pleased that it’s a recognition, too, of work that was done here. Something we do need to keep in mind all the time is how much can come out of work that’s done to try to understand, in the broadest sense, and sharing that understanding with everybody else.