Sulston Quotes

#1. Our ability to read out this sequence of our own genome has the makings of a philosophical paradox. Can an intelligent being comprehend the instructions to make itself? - John Sulston Scholars

Siddhartha Mukherjee

#2. It is not a Pandora's box that science opens; it is, rather, a treasure chest. We, humanity, can choose whether or not to take out the discoveries and use them, and for what purpose.

John Sulston

#3. 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.

John Sulston

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

John Sulston

#5. 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.

John Sulston

#6. We can choose to address the twin issues of population and consumption to rebalance the use of resources to a more egalitarian pattern of consumption.

John Sulston

#7. I believe our basic information, our 'software', should be free and open for everyone to play with, to compete with, to try and make products from. I do not believe it should be under the control of one person.

John Sulston

#8. When it came to choice of subjects, science was obvious - since I was uninterested in anything else - but a decision that caused consternation in some eyes was my demand to take biology for A-level.

John Sulston

#9. 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.

John Sulston

#10. Science and the many benefits that science has produced have played a crucial part in our history and produced vast improvements to human welfare.

John Sulston

#11. 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.

John Sulston

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

John Sulston

#13. The free market is the epitome of life itself. This is something that all scientists recognise because science itself operates on free market lines.

John Sulston

#14. 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.

John Sulston

#15. I don't think one ought to bring a clearly disabled child into the world.

John Sulston

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

John Sulston

#17. 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.

John Sulston

#18. 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.

John Sulston

#19. Our work on C. elegans emphasized the benefits of sharing large amounts of information. We took a global approach to discover the mechanisms that led to the development of the worm.

John Sulston

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

John Sulston

#21. In order to protect the market value of a proprietary database, the owner must prohibit redistribution of the contents - otherwise, the information would quickly leak out and be widely known.

John Sulston

#22. Title deeds establish and protect ownership of our houses, while security of property is as important to the proprietors of Tesco and Sainsbury's as it is to their customers.

John Sulston

#23. If we understand the worm, we understand life.

John Sulston

#24. Many people thought that, given my knowledge of the egg, I should analyse embryonic mutants.

John Sulston

#25. 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.

John Sulston

#26. 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.

John Sulston

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

John Sulston

#28. An awful lot of food is thrown away. This you can call a spillover. It doesn't sort of enter into our economic system because it's a consequence of running things in a highly competitive way: the free market, global pricing and so on.

John Sulston

#29. The human world lives in a framework called global economics. We live in a system based on GDP, which drives consumption. it causes people to compete with each other through trade in a way that they all grow.

John Sulston

#30. In science, as in business, there must be structures that ensure the well endowed do not use their position to block competition.

John Sulston

#31. The currencies of science are discoveries and ideas; the rewards are the excitement of going where nobody has been before and, if one is inclined to such things, the kudos of peer acclaim, plus funds to do more research.

John Sulston

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

John Sulston

#33. Whilst worthy in themselves, applications shouldn't be the only way to drive basic research.

John Sulston

#34. 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.

John Sulston

#35. Biomedical research is only as good as its delivery. Distribution of medicines by charities is no more than a stopgap.

John Sulston

#36. It was a matter of not living lavishly but enjoying what you had, growing things with your hands, working hard, but not being tied to a nine-to-five job, and generally feeling that there's more to life than money.

John Sulston

#37. What is the purpose of being human and alive without doing new things?

John Sulston

#38. Muriel, my mother, was my main confidant. She was a teacher of English at Watford grammar school but took a break while my sister Madeleine and I were children. She held court in the kitchen, and we talked about everything.

John Sulston

#39. The only thing I have retained from my upbringing - I did not retain the religious element - is the idea that you do not do things for money.

John Sulston