Genomic sequencing in the service of human rights.

Like everyone else who is a part of the celebration of the 80th year of Mervyn Susser and Zena Stein, the invitation to include my work in this collection has delighted, honoured and overwhelmed me. I have known Zena and Mervyn since I was 30, both my entire life as an independent scientist and my entire life as a mother. That I have been able to be both has been due to the example of Zena, more than anyone in the world. For 25 years, she has supported me intellectually and emotionally, with intercontinental collaborative projects or a cup of tea, whichever was more critical at the moment. As my birthday present for Mervyn and Zena, I offer the story of genomic sequencing in the service of human rights, because it grows from the way they do science. Not that this is literally a Susser-Stein project. I have been swept up in many of those, but this is not one of them. Rather, I was able to conceive of this project 17 years ago and carry it out since because of the principles I have learned from these two. In thinking about this celebration, I have tried to formulate those principles explicitly, which is a little difficult, because for me, learning from Zena and Mervyn is entirely deductive. But here are a few things I have learned from them that have been important to me: