John Sulston

“When results are shared freely amongst the biological community, as has been done for the worm and the Human Genome Projects, specialist scientists can move much more rapidly towards their goals.”

“I don't want a few extra weeks of life at enormous cost, for example, when it comes to the end.”

“I wandered along to the chemistry labs, more or less on the rebound, and asked about becoming a research student. It was the '60s, a time of university expansion: the doors were open, and a 2:1 was good enough to get me in.”

“The fruits of science and innovation have nourished our society and economy for years, but nations unable to navigate our regulatory system are often excluded, as are vulnerable individuals.”

“If you patent a discovery which is unique, say a human gene or even just one particular function of a human gene, then you are actually creating a monopoly, and that's not the purpose of the world of patents.”

“The strong evidence is that we're running out of space. We're collectively affecting the world's climate. This is due to the still-growing human population and our increase in consumption.”

“If we understand the worm, we understand life.”

“The Wellcome Trust is a hugely important organisation, and it is vital that its fundraising continues unabated.”

“What is the purpose of being human and alive without doing new things?”

“There's always a tension between those who would like to garner wealth, and they contribute a lot to society. There's also those who say, 'I believe in the common good. I want that to be enlarged.' They contribute a lot to society. The tension, the debate, between these two views is extremely important to our progress.”

“I would say if we can select children who are not going to be severely disadvantaged, then we should do so, but I think it has to be done by voluntary choice.”

“It is very clear that the present system of innovation for medicines is very inefficient and really somewhat corrupt. It benefits shareholders over patients; it produces for the rich markets and not for the poor and does not produce for minority diseases.”

“As far back as I remember, and earlier, I was an artisan, a maker and doer. Mechanically minded, my parents said.”

“The myth is that IP rights are as important as our rights in castles, cars, and corn oil. IP is supposedly intended to encourage inventors and the investment needed to bring their products to the clinic and marketplace.”

“You have to say - and I do - that anything that blocks that cheapest possible point-of-care delivery of health is wrong.”

“We knew that all the protein-coding bits of genes do is to produce protein - they have to have instructions to turn them on and off. Those sequences lie well outside the protein-coding sequences, sometimes thousands, tens of thousands of bases away.”

“The fact is that proprietary databases don't work for such basic and broadly needed information as the sequence of the human genome.”

“On my mother's side, I come from Midlands engineers and, on my father's, from tenant farmers near Oxford.”

“I'm pleased that some economists and sociologists are beginning to talk about, for example, alternative measures of human well-being - alternative, that is, to GDP, on which the world runs.”