Genetic map is

hailed as 'new

power', Fruits

of historic

achievement

could be seen

in 5 years

WASHINGTON -- In a historic breakthrough, scientists from two competing projects to create a human genetic blueprint declared Monday that the job was essentially complete and that new medicines could be developed from it within five to seven years.

Scientists say the achievement will turn out to be one of the greatest contributions to science in the 21st century.

J. Craig Venter of Celera Genomics in Rockville, Md., and Francis Collins, leader of the

international publicly funded Human Genome Project, shared the spotlight in a ceremony at the White House Monday morning after two years of often-bitter rivalry.

In honoring the two, President Clinton said that the human genetic code will give medical science "an immense new power to heal" by attacking disease "at its genetic roots."

"Our children may know cancer only as a constellation of stars" instead of a leading cause of death, Clinton said. Information from the genetic code should never be used to discriminate against people, cause the loss of health care or be used to invade a person's privacy, he said. Congress is working on legislation to protect Americans' genetic privacy. The truce between the competing projects left both sides smiling and promising to publish their scientific results simultaneously later this year. If they do, the public would likely benefit even more quickly from new gene-based drugs that target diseases at their most fundamental causes. Pharmaceutical companies intend to mine the data from both projects to develop medicines for diseases such as Alzheimer's, cancer and mental disorders. "The only race we're interested in today is the human race, and we want them to be the winners," Collins said.

The genetic code consists of the 3.15 billion letters that make up the instructions for all human genes. The code varies among individuals by only about 1%, but those variations are crucial to understanding how people respond differently to drugs and why they are susceptible to different diseases. The Human Genome Project database that contains the genetic code is available to all scientists and commercial users. A consortium of drug companies is searching the code for those variations, which are called SNPs (pronounced snips). Celera's pharmaceutical company customers, who pay for use of the genetic code contained in Celera's monstrous private database, also are searching for SNPs. "What we've done today is draw a bright line in history," Venter says. "In 10 or 20 years, it will be clear how science and medicine changed."

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner


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“The genetic code consists of the 3.15 billion letters and Varies by 1%”

The First:

• Entry of sin and death into the world; Man’s punishment and the promise of Christ. (Gen 3:15)
• Entry of disease and cures. The snake, symbol for the medical arts still used today.     (John 3:14)
• Entry of Man’s attempt to provide eternal life for himself through  science-technology (John 3:15)
• Entry of Christ, the fulfillment of God’s promise to redeem the world from sin and death (John 3:16)