Author(s): Elizabeth Finkel

Boxed

The year 2001 saw the completion of the human genome project, the culmination of a 14-year, $3 billion, international race to read every letter of the code that makes up a human being. Reading this code was the most profound revelation in the history of humankind, and it was thought that the secrets of what made us human would be answered. After a three-year slog, Elizabeth Finkel presents the main stories from the genetics frontier. She looks at the revolution in the areas of medicine, agriculture and evolution, travelling from Botswana to Boston, from Singapore to Mexico, from Australian wheatfields in NSW and the Wimmera plains to laboratories all over Australia to understand these changes.