Scientists complete map of human genetic code

Last Updated: Friday, November 10, 2000 | 11:58 PM ET

CBC News

An international team of scientists has finished mapping the human genome — all the genes in the human body — and is calling it the most outstanding achievement in human history.

On Monday morning, scientists at the Sanger Center in London announced the first step in a genetic revolution — they've made a blueprint of the 100,000 genes that make up the human genome.

"Future generations will see this as an historic moment in mankind's search for knowledge about himself," said Britain's science minister, Lord Sainsbury.

Bill Clinton comments on the announcement.

The publicly funded Human Genome Project says it has mapped 97 per cent of the human genetic code, of which 85 per cent has been accurately sequenced.

• ALSO: Quirks & Quarks: more on the controversy surrounding the project

The achievement is being compared to discovering penicillin or putting a man on the moon because scientists now have blueprints to a human being's biological functions and susceptibility to illnesses.

Machine used in genome-mapping

U.S. President Bill Clinton likened the breakthrough to Galileo's celestial searchings and the mapping of the American wild by explorers Lewis and Clark.

Clinton and British Prime Minister Tony Blair held a joint news conference via satellite to praise the achievement.

Clinton, speaking from the White House, said this is "a day for the ages." He stressed that the genome map must be used to benefit all of humankind.

From London, Blair called the map's completion "the first great technological triumph of the 21st century."

Both leaders say the genome map raises new ethical, legal, and social questions. For example, a person's genetic history could be used in employment or insurance decisions.

The genome work was carried out in 16 cities around the world. The Human Genome Project is supported mostly by the U.S. National Institutes of Health and Britain's Wellcome Trust, the world's largest medical research charity.

The project was in a race with private U.S. company Celera Genomics Corp. to decode the 3.1 billion DNA units that make up human life.

The race to map the raw DNA took 10 years and cost millions of dollars.

Scientists believe that understanding the human genetic code will change the way diseases are detected and treated, and lead to better drugs and new treatments.

But scientists say these kinds of advances are still a long way off and this announcement is just the beginning of years of research.

Experts say it will probably take another two years to finalize the genome map and then even longer to understand it and find out how it can be applied to medical science.