Caenorhabditis elegans, a 1-mm (0.03-in) long soil-dwelling, non-parasitic nematode worm, is the first species of multicellular animal whose entire genome (genetic code) has been sequenced. Although its entire adult body consists of only 959 cells (humans have trillions), it has 100 million genetic bases comprising at least 18,000 genes, and more than 50 % of known human genes correspond with versions possessed by C. elegans. The monumental task of mapping the worm’s entire genome was the brainchild of Dr Sydney Brenner (South Africa), who initiated the project back in the 1960s at the Medical Research Council’s Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridgeshire, UK and began the actual sequencing in 1990.