A rchive Date
[ 07-06-2000 ]
Category
[ Science ]
sub-Categoy
[ Biotechnology ]
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http://www.science.doe.gov/ober/hug_top.html
Race, what race?
Researchers deny they're in a race to complete human genome map
By PAUL RECER -- The Associated Press
Human Genome Research
Wednesday, Jun. 07, 2000
WASHINGTON (AP) -- There's no race between two groups mapping the human genes. Instead, two researchers said they are reaching for the same goal using different methods that will be "complementary."
Dr. Francis Collins, head of the National Institutes of Health program to map the human genome, and Dr. Craig Venter, president of Celera Genomics, a private Maryland company doing the same thing, shook hands and complimented each other in a brief meeting Tuesday at an NIH conference.
Asked about their competition, Collins told reporters, "racing is the wrong metaphor. I wish you would stop using it."
Instead, Collins said the federally funded project and the private effort by Venter's company are using different ways to explore new territories.
Venter agreed, saying the efforts of the two organizations are "complementary."
A Celera spokeswoman said results from the two efforts will be used to "double check" each other for accuracy in the sequencing of the 3.1 billion DNA subunits in the human genome.
Venter hinted that Collins' group and his company may be in discussions about a joint announcement, but declined to be specific.
He said that earlier the two groups had discussed the possibility of negotiating a cooperative agreement, but nothing was firmed up.
Collins leads the National Human Genome Research Institute, which is part of an international, government-funded effort to sequence and map all of the human genes. The United States is spending about $3 billion on the effort.
The government consortium is nearing completion of "the working draft," which would mean 90 percent of the genome had been sequenced and checked for accuracy, officials said.
Venter is using a computer-driven method he helped pioneer to map the genome. Celera announced last month it has sequenced the genes for one human being and may complete assembly of the sequences this month, probably reaching the goal before NIH.
A bitter rivalry has been reported between Venter and Collins' group. But the two were all smiles Tuesday.
"The controversy has been painful for both of us," said Venter. "But a good effect is that the world is far more aware of genomics (study of genes) than before."
"Competition is a good thing," added Collins. "It gets the blood stirred up."
The two were speakers at the annual scientific conference of the General Motors Cancer Research Foundation.
In his remarks, Venter said his company would "publicly and freely" release its map of the human genome when it was completed. The announcement came after some researchers had charged that Celera was withholding gene information to sell the data to drug companies.
The government-funded effort puts its genetic data on the Internet daily, available to all. Venter said his company will do the same when the project is complete.
"A lot of credit goes to Celera," Collins said after the announcement. "They are taking this data, that they paid dearly for, and making it available to the academic community."
Asked how Celera will make a profit if the information is given away, Venter said his firm would sell its interpretation and the use of its massive gene-analysis computer system. Celera's $100 million facility in Rockville, Md., is one of the largest civilian computer assemblages in the world.
Celera already has completed, or been a partner in, genetic maps for a microbe and the fruit fly, and is about a third of the way through a project to sequence genes of a strain of laboratory mice.
The human genome is all of the genes that give instructions for an individual's biological development and the functioning of the cells. |
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