“The beginning of each of us is our personal genome; it appears when we are even smaller than a cell, and from then on remains with us forever and determines our entire future life. The genome is like a complex barcode. Because it is so long and complex, each of us is different not only from the 8 billion people living on the planet today, but also from all of the 20-plus billion who have existed since the dawn of humanity 200,000 years ago. And of course, we have it differently than any other species that has lived in the last 4 billion years, be it animals, plants, viruses or archaea. What could be more individual?..”