2011 15 November Robert Waterston/John Sulston interview

Robert Waterston and John Sulston, interview by Kathryn Maxson, Rachel Ankeny, and Robert Cook-Deegan, Durham, NC, 15 November 2011. Robert Waterston completed postdoctoral work at the Medical Research Council (MRC) Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB) in Cambridge, England, before joining the faculty of Genetics at Washington University in St. Louis. He founded the Genome Sequencing Center at the Washington University School of Medicine in 1993. Along with John Sulston, he was a pioneer in the genomic mapping and sequencing of the nematode worm C. elegans, a leading spokesman for the idea that model organism sequencing should precede human sequencing, and a chief architect of the Bermuda Principles. John Sulston also completed postdoctoral work at the LMB, under the tutelage of Sydney Brenner. He then made integral contributions to the developmental biology, genomic mapping, and sequencing of the nematode, the former of which earned him a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, alongside H. Robert Horvitz and Brenner, in 2002. Sulston was a definitive leader in the HGP, churning out both nematode and human sequence as director of the Sanger Centre, the sequencing factory funded by the Wellcome Trust and the U.K. MRC. This transcript is available beginning 1 July 2014. Keywords: Human Genome Project, HGP, interview, Bermuda Principles, Bermuda Accord, International Strategy Meetings on Human Genome Sequencing, data sharing, science policy, genomics, genome, genome sequence, genetics, DNA sequence, DNA, deoxyribonucleic acid, NIH, National Institutes of Health, DOE, Department of Energy, C. elegans, nematode, Washington University in St. Louis, Washington University School of Medicine, Medical Research Council, MRC, Laboratory of Molecular Biology, LMB, University of Cambridge, Nobel laureate, Sanger Centre, Wellcome Trust, Robert Waterston, John Sulston.This research was supported by the NHGRI-funded Duke Center for Public Genomics, P50 HG 003391, with supplementary funding from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation