Who Wrote the Book of Life?: A History of the Genetic Code (Writing Science) [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

This is a valuable historical account of how the genetic code was discovered, written by a person who revels in historical details. What a sadness that the author, Dr. Lily E. Kay passed away in 2000: such a talented writer; too soon, far too young. See the Wikipedia entry about her, especially the wonderful video which gives real insights into how she "reconstructs" history. In that video, she says, "I do not think that any one actor [probably including herself - hmsc] in a historical account has the privileged Archimedean vantage point from which to tell 'the true story.'... [B]e content with an imperfect grasp of events and actors, even of nature."

So, she invites us to read her reconstruction with a bit of reserve. But granting that, and the likelihood of occasional slights, oversights and outright errors, I found the discussion fascinating. My only real objection is that it is too long ("too many notes" as Mozart was famously told). I would love to see a book on the same subject, updated to the present, engagingly written, but only half as long.

The book describes just how the universal genetic code encapsulated in dna, was discovered. The puzzle was to explain how a long sequence of just 4 nucleotides could specify the generation and folding of proteins based on 20 amino acids. The final solution - a (nearly) universal coding in which combinations of 3 nucleotides determine the amino acids - was found in the 1960s, and Dr. Kay discribes the push to this discovery as a frenetic race between many competing interests. I particularly like her description of how some of the discoveries were made -- although some of the details were still left out: in this regard, Craig Venter's book, A Life Decoded: My Genome - My Life is a bit more satisfying because it goes into more of the details that I find interesting -- but perhaps his was a somewhat simpler (!) task.

The start of the book discusses the information theoretical underpinnings that (perhaps) prepared the way for the discovery of the genetic code, but, unless I missed it in my reading, I hoped for but did not find a comparable theorical discussion of the actual code after the complete picture was put in place. I would have liked to see something on the chemical necessity or contingency of the resulting code, and of the role of the occasional code redundancy, use in error correction, more on the concept of a "primitive" doublet code as a precursor to the triplet code, etc. Also, something on the occasional deviations from the "universal" code table (either use of amino acids outside of the standard 20, or occasional use of a different coding scheme).

But in the end, this is an excellent book -- and deserves a well-written, shorter companion that perhaps emphasizes less the personalities involved and gives a somewhat more complete and up to date account. I recommend it to anyone who is curious about how the "central dogma" of biology was discovered.