[Next-Generation Sequencing Book]
  • [Photo] J.W. Bizzaro • March 1, 2002
    ``At Jim Kent's Human Genome Browser Gateway, anyone curious about the fundamental building blocks of the human body can point and click their way through gigabytes of publicly available genetic data.

    ``The vast data set is only about 90 percent complete, in contrast to the proprietary sequencing of the human genome already assembled by the biotech company Celera, but what is there is open to all – provided they have the biological chops to make sense of it. Users can click on pictures of chromosomes, drilling down into the data until they reach individual genes or areas of as-yet-unanalyzed sequences of nucleotides.

    ``The data has been made available for reasons that stretch beyond mere scientific curiosity. When Celera's former CEO Craig Venter pushed his company to finish mapping the human genome before the government-funded, public Human Genome Project (HGP), the move was widely considered an attempt to demonstrate that science is done more efficiently by the private sector. But Celera ended up filing hundreds of patents on discoveries it made while sequencing the genome, and access to the database itself is exorbitantly expensive.''

    Full story:
    http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2002/02/26/biopunk/index.html

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