Human Genome Project

ROCKVILLE -- When J. Craig Venter said a few days ago that he would try to complete the first human genetic blueprint faster than the federal Human Genome Project, it was as if some aerospace executive had vowed in the mid-1960s to overtake NASA and be the first to put humans on the moon.Of course, the upstart entrepreneur who tried to launch a private Apollo mission would have been ridiculed, his sanity seriously questioned. But Venter, who pioneered a widely used method for rapidly identifying genes, has a history of silencing skeptics.

BETHESDA -- Leaders of the federal Human Genome Project pledged yesterday to produce a complete blueprint of human DNA by 2003, two years earlier than scheduled. And, after criticizing a rival plan to produce a less-than-perfect blueprint a few months ago, they said they would create a "rough draft" by the year 2001."What we are talking about is a big and ambitious and even audacious plan," said Dr. Francis Collins, director of the Human Genome Project. "It will, I believe, ignite the imagination of the scientific community."

The cloning of humans is coming. The pressing need for advancements in medical technology and the drive of scientific curiosity cannot override the importance of examining the theological, moral and ethical ramifications of cloning. We must marshal our resources to initiate a debate.As the 20th century has come to be known for the Information Revolution, so will the 21st century be known for the Biological Revolution. Exactly where the breakthrough cloning of a sheep by researchers at the Roslin Institute in Scotland will lead is anyone's guess, but we can be certain of one thing: The ethical, moral and theological frameworks of our society will be drastically affected, challenged, and, at times, perhaps even devalued.

In 1969, the year man first walked the moon, Dr. Victor A. McKusick proposed that scientists map the genes that help make people what they are: blond or brunette, giant or dwarf, daring or reluctant. The proposal must have seemed as realistic as a mission to the sun."It took a little nerve," says the Johns Hopkins physician, who admits that nobody had the tools to pull it off.Then again, nobody envisioned that science would move as fast as it has. Thanks to rapid advances in biology, scientists now regard the complete mapping of the human genome as an inevitability.

Working in a warehouse-sized laboratory filled with robot technicians, French researchers have made a significant advance in the race to identify the causes of all genetic diseases, acing out their U.S. and Japanese competitors in the process.The researchers report today in the British journal Nature that they have compiled the first "physical map" of the human genome, the complete blueprint for the construction of a human being.Their achievement comes at least two years ahead of the projected date for the completion of such a map by the American Human Genome Project, a 15-year, $3 billion project with a long-term goal of identifying the exact order of each of the 3 billion chemicals that compose the human genetic complement.

Life Technologies Inc. announced yesterday a joint research venture with Los Alamos National Laboratories that will put the Gaithersburg company near the forefront of path-breaking basic research into human genetics and the causes of human disease.The three-year deal gives the Gaithersburg company the first rightto manufacture any commercially useful chemicals discovered during the joint research with the New Mexico-based federal laboratory.Life Technologies will pay royalties to the laboratory if it decides to go ahead and produce any new enzymes or other chemicals, Mary Fraker, a company spokeswoman, said.

THERE'S MONEY in them there genes, and the federal government is in a hurry to cash in. How else to explain the virtual gold rush it has begun by seeking patents for hundreds of human genes before even knowing what these genes actually do?With a global market estimated to grow to $100 billion by the middle of the next century, biotechnology is undoubtedly important for America's future competitiveness. And as the recent fight between Genentech and a Japanese competitor over a genetically engineered heart drug shows, owning the knowledge of codes of genes will hold the key to profits.

It could provide a road map to all of human genetics, cures for any number of diseases and fodder for generations of dissertation topic-seeking graduate students of biology. It could also provide a bonanza for Life Technologies Inc."It" is the Human Genome Project, a multiyear, multibillion-dollar federally backed research project to identify the location of every chromosome, gene and base pair of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) -- all three billion base pairs, in fact -- that make up the human cell.

The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine is receiving nearly $16 million in federal funds toward building a computerized data base that will reveal how human beings are made and how they function.Somewhat like an international quilting bee, scientists around the world are identifying genes -- the chemical instructions to cells -- and pinpointing their location on chromosomes, then sending the information to the Hopkins computer library. When the quilt is finished, it will be a map of all human genes and additional genetic commands that turn the genes on and off.With this map, scientists will be able to learn how to better treat and prevent diseases and genetic abnormalities, said Dr. Victor A. McKusick, professor of medical genetics at Hopkins and a pioneer in the field.

FOR SALE: Amid wishes for a merry Christmas, Bishop Emilio de Carvalho of Luanda, Angola, president of the United Methodist Council of Bishops, said such sentiments seem odd in the world's trouble spots."

WASHINGTON - The government's leading geneticist announced yesterday that he is stepping down after 15 years, paving the way for the growing role that DNA will play in medical care. As director of the National Human Genome Research Institute, Dr. Francis S. Collins led the successful effort to sequence the human genome and helped secure a new law, signed just last week, barring discrimination based on genetic information. He also shepherded significant advances in understanding the genetic causes of common diseases, while attempting to reassure a public concerned about the ethical implications of the fast-moving developments.

Five years ago on a summer day in the East Room of the White House, then-President Bill Clinton and Tony Blair - the British prime minister weighing in by satellite - hailed the mapping of the human genome as "the first great technological triumph of the 21st century." It was an achievement that many said would one day lead to eradication of disease and the creation of made-to-order, individualized drugs. On each side of the president were the beaming victors, ready to reap the spoils: a brash, but brilliant scientist named J. Craig Venter, then president of Celera Genomics Group of Rockville, and the accomplished Francis S. Collins, head of the Human Genome Project, an international consortium of academic laboratories led by the National Institutes of Health.

In Washington Patients' rights to see Medicare information upheld When Medicare patients ask for an investigation into their care, the government must tell them the results, a federal appeals court ruled yesterday. The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia upheld a 2001 District Court ruling, saying Medicare patients had to be kept up to speed on revelations about their complaints. The government policy had been to merely tell people who complained that it had investigated and, if any problems were found, the proper action would be taken.

With the international race to decipher human DNA now mostly history, some biologists are embarking on an even more sweeping molecular mission: to catalog all the proteins in the human body. On Monday, 180 scientists will converge in Washington to hash out a battle plan for the titanic effort, already under way in many laboratories around the world. "This is the next step in the evolution of our understanding of what life is all about," says George Kenyon, a University of Michigan biochemist who organized the National Academy of Sciences meeting.

Recently, an organization called "The Human Genome Project" -- which, incredibly, turns out NOT to be rock band -- announced that it had deciphered the human genetic code. Scientists reacted by holding a joyous celebration. Clearly, then, cracking the genetic code is a big deal for the scientific community. But what does it mean to you, the nonscientist who still secretly believes that radio works by magic? To answer that question, we need to review basic biology. I studied biology under Mrs. Wright at Pleasantville (N.Y.

WASHINGTON -- They all talked about it as a book, although e-book is a better analogy. If the human genome were actually printed out on paper it would rise as high as the Washington Monument. On Monday, to enormous fanfare, competing scientists from Celera Genomics Corp. and the federal Human Genome Project jointly announced the publication of the "Book of Life." For the first time, we have a working draft of the instruction manual for making and growing a human being. And though it isn't exactly a beach book, it is a blockbuster.

Celera Genomics, the Rockville company competing with the public Human Genome Project to decipher the human genetic code, said yesterday that it expects to announce the assembly of its version of the human genome in June. That is later than J. Craig Venter, Celera president and chief scientific officer, told members of a congressional committee meeting in early April. At the time, he said the company had finished the sequencing phase of its effort and would complete the assembly phase within three to six weeks.

DECIPHERING the human genetic code, identifying and sequencing more than 100,000 genes that determine the body's development, is a formidable, complex task. So too is the legal challenge to determine what is proprietary information that can be patented by gene research companies, and what genetic information should be public property. In the balance is the discovery and treatment of myriad diseases and genetic disorders, a scientific breakthrough of unthinkable magnitude. Four years ago, the leading industrial nations agreed to an informal program of complete, continuous release of information gathered by the international Human Genome Project.

BETHESDA -- Leaders of the federal Human Genome Project pledged yesterday to produce a complete blueprint of human DNA by 2003, two years earlier than scheduled. And, after criticizing a rival plan to produce a less-than-perfect blueprint a few months ago, they said they would create a "rough draft" by the year 2001."What we are talking about is a big and ambitious and even audacious plan," said Dr. Francis Collins, director of the Human Genome Project. "It will, I believe, ignite the imagination of the scientific community."

ROCKVILLE -- When J. Craig Venter said a few days ago that he would try to complete the first human genetic blueprint faster than the federal Human Genome Project, it was as if some aerospace executive had vowed in the mid-1960s to overtake NASA and be the first to put humans on the moon.Of course, the upstart entrepreneur who tried to launch a private Apollo mission would have been ridiculed, his sanity seriously questioned. But Venter, who pioneered a widely used method for rapidly identifying genes, has a history of silencing skeptics.