Word: venter
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...surprise, therefore, that private firms have plunged into human-genome projects of their own. Nor is it surprising, given the potential payoff, that their scientists have found ways to speed up the decoding process. Indeed, one such company--Celera Genomics Corp., led by maverick scientist Craig Venter (see following story)--declared last spring that it would have the job substantially wrapped up in three years...
Blindsided by Venter's surprise announcement, leaders of the federal genome project--which is being carried out at university and government labs in the U.S., at the Sanger Centre near Cambridge, England, and at facilities in Germany and Japan--spent the summer rethinking their schedule. The result: an announcement last fall that they would finish up by 2003 rather than 2005, with a rough "working draft" of the genome to be published...
...last week's congressional hearing, called to weigh the impact of Venter's venture on the Genome Project, Washington University geneticist Maynard Olson predicted that the Venter map will have more than 100,000 "serious gaps"--regions where the fragments are improperly aligned. "Yes, you'll get a holey map," agrees Rockefeller University professor Norton Zinder, who was chair of the first Genome Project advisory committee. "But we will fill the holes." He anticipates substantial benefits from Venter's plan. "Craig," he says, "has jump-started the sequencing...
...Venter exudes confidence and points to TIGR's track record. Using the shotgun approach, his company has already sequenced the DNA of seven microorganisms, including the bacterium that causes ulcers. That number, he notes, represents half of all the genomes decoded to date. "The [human] genome will be accurately and completely covered," Venter promised the science subcommittee last week. And as proof he promised to sequence the genome of the fruit fly (which is far more complex than those of bacteria) within a year...
Late last week, his testimony completed, Craig Venter packed his gear, boarded the Sorcerer and prepared to compete in the Newport-to-Bermuda race. For Venter, this contest should be a cup of tea. Unlike his venture into the human genome, this will be a voyage into fully charted waters...