Walter Gilbert Quotes

I would like to do a series about sequencing the human genome, and also analyze more human diversity among other ethnic groups - a 'Faces of America 2.'

Decoding the human genome is the most significant undertaking that we have mounted so far in an organized way in all of science. I believe that reading our blueprints, cataloguing our own instruction book, will be judged by history as more significant than even splitting the atom or going to the moon.

Genomics are about individuals. It's about what's specific to you, not your siblings, not your parents - each of us is totally unique. We will only see that uniqueness by drilling down to the genetic code.

The difference between humans and Neanderthals is .004 percent of gene code. That's how big the difference is, one species to another.

We are all 99.9 percent genetically equal. It is one one-hundredth of one percent of genetic material that makes the difference between any one of us.

The mouse genome is an invaluable tool to interpret the human genome.

If you know the mother's genome and the father's genome, and you see that the children have some genes that neither parent has, then you know that difference is either a mutation or a processing error.

We can do genetics. We can do experiments on fruit flies. We can do experiments on yeast. It's not so easy to do experiments on humans. So, in fact, it helps us, to interpret our own genetic code, to have the genetic code of the other species.

Where we are going as a species is a big question. Human evolution certainly hasn't stopped. Every time individuals produce a new zygote, there's a reshuffling and recombination of genes. And we don't know where all of that is going to take us.

Traditional ways of distinguishing populations are irrelevant in terms of genetic code.

You can now modify the genes of large animals, and the largest animal we are concerned with is the human.

All human beings are, in fact, born with dozens of mutations their parents lacked, and a few of those mutations could well be lethal if we didn't have two copies of every gene, so one can pick up the slack if the other malfunctions.

We are here to celebrate the completion of the first survey of the entire human genome. Without a doubt, this is the most important, most wondrous map ever produced by human kind.

Genome sequencing has changed taxonomy.

I thought we'd just sequence the genome once and that would be sufficient for most things in people's lifetimes. Now we're seeing how changeable and adaptable it is, which is why we're surviving and evolving as a species.

Humankind has mainly evolved in Africa, and we only left Africa very, very late in our evolutionary path. This means that there is very little genetic diversity among those who left Africa and very much genetic diversity among those who stayed.

In Greek myth, a chimera is a creepy combination of lion, goat, dragon - in humans, chimeras are one person who contains two sets of DNA. That's right. One person comes up in tests as two different people.

In fact, humans have less variation genetically than chimpanzees.

I demand of you, and of the whole world, that you show me a generic character... by which to distinguish between Man and Ape. I myself most assuredly know of none.

Hereafter we shall be compelled to acknowledge that the only distinction between species and well-marked varieties is, that the latter are known, or believed to be connected at the present day by intermediate gradations whereas species were formerly thus connected.

Eventually we'll be able to sequence the human genome and replicate how nature did intelligence in a carbon-based system.

At the deepest level, all living things that have ever been looked at have the same DNA code. And many of the same genes.

If what distinguishes us from other species is speech, then poetry, which is the supreme linguistic operation, is our anthropological - indeed, genetic - goal.

We know that at conception, the genetic code is there for a unique individual. This is not something that is just a religious belief.

I'm looking for all the things that are beneficial in the human genome. Everything that I do is based on a very simple principle: things that are beneficial will spread through populations very quickly.