Abstract
The handbook of man is written in the four letter alphabet in the language of DNA. The information that matters and makes us all into what we are is equivalent to the contents of one copy of the Oxford English Dictionary, but one single misprint in the still undeciphered handbook causes severe disease. Good progress has been made for sickle cell disease and there is much promise that similar new techniques can also be applied to cancer of the colon. International collaboration to elucidate the human genome, the handbook of man, has now started with the Human Genome Organisation (HUGO), at a cost that is small in comparison with other human activities.
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