Washington & Cambridge

Sulston: received award for work on genome. Credit: WELLCOME TRUST

Champagne corks were popping on both sides of the Atlantic on Tuesday (23 November) when participants in the Human Genome Project celebrated the successful sequencing of the one-billionth base pair of human DNA.

The landmark means that researchers are approximately one third of the way towards the full sequence of about three billion nucleotides, which is due to be completed next spring. According to officials at the Wellcome Trust in London, the one-billionth nucleotide, reached on 17 November, was a ‘G’ (guanine).

At a ceremony at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, Donna Shalala, the US Secretary for Health and Human Services, handed certificates to representatives of the main US sequencing centres, each of which was linked by video to the award ceremony. Shalala paid tribute to “the brilliance, dedication and ingenuity of hundreds of scientists throughout the world. They've been doing this quietly, but at an astonishing pace, and their work promises to fuel unprecedented scientific and medical advances.”

Francis Collins, director of the National Human Genome Research Institute, which is supporting the US part of the project with the energy department, praised participants for keeping costs down and quality up.

Britain's science minister, David Sainsbury, told a simultaneous celebration at the Sanger Centre outside Cambridge, where one third of the sequencing is being carried out, that the speed and skill with which the one-billionth pair had been reached was “a remarkable achievement”. Earlier in the day, Sainsbury presented an award to John Sulston, the director of the Sanger Centre.