French DNA

by Paul Rabinow

"In 1993, an American biotechnology company, Millennium Pharmaceuticals, and France's premier genetics lab, the Centre d'Etude du Polymorphisme Humaine (CEPH), developed plans for a collaborative effort to discover diabetes genes. The two companies had agreed that the CEPH would supply Millennium with a store of genetic material collected from a large number of French families, and Millennium would supply funding and expertise in new technologies to accelerate the identification of the genes, terms that the French government had approved. But in early 1994, just as the collaboration was to begin, the French government abruptly called a halt. The government insisted that under no circumstances could the CEPH be permitted to give the Americans that most precious of all substances - never before named in such a manner - French DNA."--BOOK JACKET. "French DNA is about international competition, the future of human health, ferocious financial conflict and the intersection of culture and sci