Human Genome Race Hits New Bend

If you thought the biggest scientific race, the race to decode the human genome, was over, think again. Biologist Dr. J. Craig Venter and his team published a paper today announcing the decoding another version of the human genome.

Dr.Venter had refused to accept earlier that the human genome had been effectively decoded by the consortium of academic centers under the aegis of the government in 2003. He had good reason to do this, considering he was competing with them; but that was not the sole reason.

The genome that academic consortium decoded did not have all the DNA a regular cell usually has, for starters; it had just half. Besides, the people who contributed the genome in that project were of different races and ethnicities.

Dr. Venter’s genome, on the contrary, is what is seen in cells normally. It is called the full genome, the scientific term being diploid genome. It has DNA from both chromosome sets, i.e. one copy from each parent. In case you are wondering who contributed this genome, it is Dr. Venter himself.

According to Venter’s team, the new genome shows there is a huge amount of variation in the way a person’s genes are programmed. The paper, which has been published in PLoS Biology’s Tuesday issue, says 44 percent of Dr. Venter genes showed variations in the copies he inherited from his mother and father.

Experts are also saying this new genome could be actually better than the one the academic consortium had decoded earlier. According to Huntington F. Willard, who is a geneticist at Duke University, the genome decoded by Dr. Venter and his team is of high quality, and would be the benchmark until something better came along.

Willard should know, as he was one of the lucky few to have early access to Dr. Venter’s work. Another genome expert, Edward M. Rubin of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, also said this was a very high quality genome.

Dr. Venter’s story began as far back as 1998, the year he came across a faster way of decoding a genome. He set up a company called Celera to pursue this exercise and compete with rival academicians. By 2000, the battle had heated up as the project went into the phase of drafting the genome sequence.

However, things turned sour for Dr. Venter when he was abruptly fired as Celera’s president. His rivals then declared they had decoded the genome in 2003. However, scientists found that genome inadequate and had large gaps.

During this time, Dr. Venter has continued working on the draft genome he had prepared at Celera. It has cost him an additional $10 million, but the results are what usually matters at times like these, and the results for him have been quite positive.

He used a time-tested methodology called the Sanger sequencing. While Sanger sequencing is expensive compared to other decoding techniques available today, but the advantage is the detail – it can decode up DNA that is up to 800 units long. The newer technologies can decode DNA sequences that are at best about 200 units long.

Dr. Venter’s approach of taking it slow and working on the genome project for another five years may yet see him having the last laugh on this one.