Human genome sequencing to be fast and free

Abstract

A new joint-venture genomics company plans to overtake the federal government's Human Genome Project by sequencing the entire human genome in only three years at its own expense. announcement by the Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR), Rockville, Md., and Perkin-Elmer Corp. (PE), Norwalk, Conn., surprised those associated with the 15-year, $3 billion federal effort. Researchers have sequenced 4% of the human genome and were planning to sequence the rest over the project's remaining seven years. as-yet-unnamed company is relying on a new generation of high-throughput DNA sequence analyzers developed by PE's Applied Biosystems Division. project will be sited at a single center to be built in Rockville, a Washington, D.C., suburb, and will use an efficient but controversial shotgun sequencing technique. The numbers for this are really quite staggering, TIGR President and Director J. Craig Venter said last week at a press conference at the National Institutes of Health. facility ...