At the end of the road in Little @Cottonwood Canyon, near Salt Lake City, @Utah, lies @Alta, a near-mythic location for skiing enthusiasts. In time, though, it may well achieve a similar status among molecular geneticists. In December 1984, a conference co-sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy (or @DOE) was held there, a conference that pondered a single question: Does modern @DNA research offer a way of detecting tiny genetic mutations -- and, in particular, of observing any increase in the mutation rate among the survivors of the @Hiroshima and @Nagasaki bombings and their descendants? In short, the answer was, "Not yet;" however, in this atmosphere of intellectual fertility, the seeds were sown for a project that would make such detection possible in the future -- the Human Genome Project.
In the months that followed, much deliberation and debate ensued. But in 1986, the DOE took a bold and unilateral step by announcing its Human Genome Initiative, convinced that its mission would be well served by a comprehensive picture of the human genome. The immediate response was considerable skepticism -- skepticism about the scientific community's technological wherewithal for sequencing the genome at a reasonable cost, and skepticism about the value of the result, even if it could be obtained economically.
Over the years, though, things have changed. Today, a worldwide effort is under way to develop and apply the technologies needed to completely map and sequence the human genome, as well as the genomes of several model organisms. Technological progress has been rapid, and it is now generally agreed that this international project will produce the complete sequence of the human genome by the year 2005, if not before.
And what is more important, the value of the project is becoming evident in a wide range of areas. Genome research is revolutionizing both biology and biotechnology, and it is providing a vital thrust to the increasingly broad scope of the biological sciences. The impact that will be felt in medicine and health care alone, once we identify and understand the function of all human genes, is inestimable. To that end, the project has already stimulated significant financial investment by large corporations and has prompted the creation of new companies hoping to capitalize on the burgeoning market.
But the DOE's early, catalytic decision deserves further comment, as the implications are more widespread -- and more controversial -- than initially believed. The project could deliver, and already has developed into, much more than the promised tool for assessing mutation rates. The information generated would contribute not only to a new understanding of human biology, but also to a host of practical applications in the biotechnology industry and in the arenas of agriculture and environmental protection.
