Reclined in a chair at a clinic outside Reykjavik, Iceland, Benedikt Arnason tells the story of the day, 11 years ago, that he had a heart attack. In a deep, rich voice cultivated by years as a stage actor and director with Iceland's national theater, he describes the chest pain that gripped him after one performance. He got to the hospital just in time. "The last thing I remember is the doctor asking me about my medical history," Arnason says. When he woke up, he found burn marks across his chest. Doctors had shocked him back to life. Now Arnason comes every two weeks to this suburban clinic, so doctors can monitor his progress as a participant in a trial of a new experimental drug -- one that physicians hope might spare him from having a second, and possibly deadly, heart attack.

If it works, Arnason will have a whole nation to thank, as well as the vision of one of the world's most ambitious biotech companies. Three years after Arnason had his heart attack, deCode Genetics, which is headquartered in a modern building just a 10-minute drive away from the clinic, embarked on a nationwide hunt for the genes that underlie heart disease, diabetes, asthma, and other common ailments. The company was betting that if it could identify those genes by rifling through this tiny country's genetic heritage, it would gain critical clues about how to fight the diseases they cause. Eight years later, the tests on Arnason and other Icelanders suffering from heart problems are allowing the company to take the final steps in proving that its bet was correct.