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Human Genome Completely Mapped!

Tue, 06/27/2000 - 11:00pm — Karen Stevenson
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At a joint White House meeting, President Clinton and British Prime Minister Tony Blair announced that the human genome has been deciphered by public and private research efforts of the international Human Genome Project and Celera Genomics Corporation. The Human Genome Project is a joint project of HHS, DOE, and international partners in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Japan, China.

The White House press release said that, as a result of this research, scientists will be able to use the working draft of the human genome to alert patients that they are at risk for certain diseases, reliably predict the course of disease, precisely diagnose disease and ensure the most effective treatment is used, and develop new treatments at the molecular level.

Alterations in our genes are responsible for an estimated 5,000 hereditary diseases, such as Huntington?s disease, cystic fibrosis, and sickle cell anemia, and influence the development of thousands of other diseases. Connecting a gene with a disease has historically been a slow and imprecise process, but genome research makes it possible to discover and describe genes in just a few days. It took 9 years to discover the gene responsible for cystic fibrosis but a gene for Parkinson?s disease was mapped in only 9 days, largely because of the coordinated efforts of genome research.

Celera Genomics was responsible for the research done in the private sector, and has devoted $1 billion to this research effort. Celera CEO and lead researcher J. Craig Ventor stated, "The method used by Celera has determined the genetic code of five individuals. We have sequenced from the genomes of three females and two males who have identified themselves as Hispanic, Asian, Caucasian, or African American. We did this initial sampling, not in an exclusionary way, but out of respect for the diversity that is America, and to help illustrate that the concept of race has no genetic or scientific basis. In the five Celera genomes there is no way to tell one ethnicity from another."

At a joint White House meeting, President Clinton and British Prime Minister Tony Blair announced that the human genome has been deciphered by public and private research efforts of the international Human Genome Project and Celera Genomics Corporation. The Human Genome Project is a joint project of HHS, DOE, and international partners in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Japan, China.

The White House press release said that, as a result of this research, scientists will be able to use the working draft of the human genome to alert patients that they are at risk for certain diseases, reliably predict the course of disease, precisely diagnose disease and ensure the most effective treatment is used, and develop new treatments at the molecular level.

Alterations in our genes are responsible for an estimated 5,000 hereditary diseases, such as Huntington?s disease, cystic fibrosis, and sickle cell anemia, and influence the development of thousands of other diseases. Connecting a gene with a disease has historically been a slow and imprecise process, but genome research makes it possible to discover and describe genes in just a few days. It took 9 years to discover the gene responsible for cystic fibrosis but a gene for Parkinson?s disease was mapped in only 9 days, largely because of the coordinated efforts of genome research.

Celera Genomics was responsible for the research done in the private sector, and has devoted $1 billion to this research effort. Celera CEO and lead researcher J. Craig Ventor stated, "The method used by Celera has determined the genetic code of five individuals. We have sequenced from the genomes of three females and two males who have identified themselves as Hispanic, Asian, Caucasian, or African American. We did this initial sampling, not in an exclusionary way, but out of respect for the diversity that is America, and to help illustrate that the concept of race has no genetic or scientific basis. In the five Celera genomes there is no way to tell one ethnicity from another."