On June 26, Francis Collins, director of the international Human Genome Project (HGP) consortium finally announced that the HGP had completed a “rough assembly” of the human genome sequence. Joining Collins at the White House was Craig Venter, president of Celera Genomics (Rockville, MD), long seen as the rival of the HGP. Celera announced it too had “completed” its own assembly of the human genome, which it “finished” sequencing in April (Nat. Biotechnol., 18, 475, 2000). Both parties' work is expected to be published simultaneously later this year. Although the announcements were hyped by some scientists as being on par with the 1969 moon landing, most acknowledge that it will be years before scientists find all the genes that make up the sequence or before many of those genes yield useful therapeutics. Indeed, Celera's stock, and that of many other genomics companies, was down following the announcement, after much inflation the previous week when word of the joint briefing leaked out. By the close of the market on June 27, Celera stock had dropped almost 22% over two days, to $99.50.

Credit: © Marty Katz

Meanwhile, the news spurred new talk of concerns over genetic privacy and discrimination. But just days after the joint announcement, the US Senate rejected a bill that would have afforded broad protections against genetic discrimination in the workplace and from insurance companies, saying it would have led to too many lawsuits.