A Maryland company yesterday said it has completed the first step in its breakthrough effort to unlock the secrets of human genetics.
The announcement by Celera Genomics that it has sequenced the genes of one person appears to put it far ahead of a U.S.-British government consortium in the race to map the “genome” – the thousands of genes in the human body.
The research could have wide-ranging ramifications for medical research and disease prevention.
Celera said it finished the first of three steps in the process of “mapping” the genome, which eventually will yield a complete picture of a person’s DNA.
In sequencing, scientists determine the order of the nucleotide molecules that compose the DNA’s double helix.
“We’ve now completed the gene-sequence plan of one human being,” said Craig Venter, chief scientist for the Rockland, Md., company.
He said the human was an unidentified male, and the gene sequence for an unidentified female would be finished by the end of the week.
The next step is to use computers to put the DNA pieces together in the proper order.
“We’re assembling one of the biggest jigsaw puzzles ever imagined,” Venter said.
He said that would take several weeks but his company is far ahead of the government-financed Human Genome Project, which is using a different approach.
“We don’t want to declare absolute victory yet, but call me in three or four weeks when it is all assembled,” Venter said.
The White House, which recently hailed British and American cooperation on the Human Genome Project, welcomed word of Celera’s accomplishment.
It “marks a … significant point in what the president has talked about extensively as … one of the most important scientific developments of our time,” press secretary Joe Lockhart said.
Wall Street also took notice: Shares of Celera’s parent company, PE Corp., yesterday jumped $25, to $140.