Word: venter
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...surfer and a hospital corpsman in Vietnam. He is a presidential adviser on germ warfare and a millionaire yachtsman who, in his 82-ft. sloop Sorcerer, won the first transatlantic race he entered. Indeed, Sorcerer is an appropriate name for a boat owned by J. Craig Venter, one of America's most high-profile biologists. For Venter has conjured up an audacious plan that has so shaken the world of science that it was the focus of a congressional hearing last week...
Simply stated, Venter claims that he--virtually single-handedly--can achieve the goals of the mammoth, federally financed Human Genome Project in less time and at far less cost. That would take some doing. When scientists launched the project in 1990, they estimated it was going to take 15 years and cost $3 billion to map the 60,000 to 80,000 human genes and sequence the 3 billion or so chemical code letters in the genome--the tangle of DNA crammed into the nucleus of each human cell...
...Venter says he can do the job faster, cheaper and just as well. In May he announced a joint effort between his center, the Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR) and Perkins-Elmer Applied Biosystems that he says will decipher virtually the entire human genome in three years and cost less than $300 million...
That announcement rankled Venter's many critics. At a scientific meeting at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York, he was denounced as "the enemy." Some charged that he was not only trying to torpedo the Human Genome Project but was also maneuvering to become the Bill Gates of biotech. Just as Gates leverages his monopoly in computer operating systems to dominate other areas of the software industry, Venter may someday control information about the human genome--which in effect is the operating system of humans. That would enable him to hold sway over the burgeoning, multibillion-dollar business...
...Venter downplays those fears. "We're not trying to steal the Genome Project," he insists. "We're using private money to sequence the human genome. We're going to publish that information, give it to the public for free. We will guarantee that the human genome is not patentable because the information will be public." Still, biologist Francis Collins, director of the National Human Genome Research Institute, is concerned about how freely data from the commercial project will be shared. Testifying last week, he urged against lessening support for the government project. "Having the public effort continue," Collins said...