My Life in Science: Sydney Brenner, A Life in Science (Lives in Science)

New! Revised edition - expanded to include photographs and a full index

From modest beginnings, Sydney Brenner has risen to become one of the most distinguished and influential scientists of the twentieth century. His research spans the breadth of biology - from deciphering the genetic code to establishing the role of the nematode worm Caenorhabditis elegans as a model organism for developmental biology.

This entertaining account charts Brenner's life, in his own words, from early experiments in the back room of his father's shoe shop to his election as Director of the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, UK and beyond. It offers a fascinating and intimate portrait of one of the giants of modern biology.

Dr. Sydney Brenner is a distinguished Professor at the Salk Institute of Biological Studies in La Jolla, California. He also is President of the Molecular Sciences Institute, in Berkeley, California, an institute he founded to pursue interdisciplinary research in genomics, genetics and computational biology.

Dr. Brenner's contributions to science are legendary. They begin with his role in establishing the existence of messenger RNA (mRNA) in copying from DNA the genetic instructions the cell uses to make proteins. Following his work in molecular genetics, he set out to disentangle the intricate biochemistry of cellular development in an animal. He chose the nematode roundworm, C. elegans, as a model research organism in the laboratory. Former Brenner postdoctoral fellows eventually produced the complete genome of C. elegans, the first animal sequenced.

Through these and other pioneering achievements, Dr. Brenner laid the foundation for a revolution in the life sciences that we are experiencing today.