Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, September 21, 1995 TAG: 9509210076
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ROBERT S. BOYD KNIGHT-RIDDER/TRIBUNE
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
Here's a pleasant surprise: A huge federal science program is turning out to be both faster and cheaper than planned.
The Human Genome Project, which aims to decipher the complete genetic code of life by 2005, will celebrate its fifth birthday next month. So far, the enterprise has cost $871 million - less than the $1 billion projected - and completed its first map of human DNA more than a year ahead of schedule.
At least 50 disease-causing genes have been identified. Tests for a dozen genetic disorders have been developed. And a start has been made toward the Holy Grail of medical science: the ability to prevent or cure cancer, birth defects, Alzheimer's and other diseases by fixing damaged genes.
``We can no longer say tracking down a specific disease gene is made difficult by lack of a good map,'' said Dr. Francis Collins, discoverer of the first human disease gene and the project's director. ``We have a good map.''
Collins acknowledged, however, that practical applications are still a long way off. And researchers are just beginning to deal with the emotional and privacy implications that arise when science is able to determine that a person has a defective gene, but no treatment for the disease is available.
Still, the results have been impressive enough that even the penny-pinching Republican Congress voted an 11.2 percent budget increase for genome research in 1996 - $170 million, up from $154 million last year and even more than President Clinton had requested.
Human DNA, the master molecule in every cell, is made up of 3 billion tiny chemical units - known as ``bases.'' There are four kinds of bases, known by their first initial as A, C, G and T. (The initials stand for the chemical compounds adenine, cytosine, guanine and thymine.)
Long strings of bases form genes, which govern the function of each cell, determining whether it is part of an eye or a toe, male or female, healthy or cancerous. All 100,000 genes together are known as the genome.
Originally, the cost of the genome project was estimated at $200 million a year, for a total of $3 billion, or one dollar per base. The cost is now down to 50 cents a base, and some scientists think the job can be completed for 10 cents a base.
Already, several significant milestones have been passed:
A rough map of human DNA, consisting of nearly 6,000 ``markers'' spaced from 500,000 to 1 million bases apart, was completed in October. The map is four times as accurate as the goal set in 1990.
A much more detailed ``physical map,'' consisting of 30,000 markers spaced about 100,000 bases apart, is halfway finished.
A start has been made toward the most ambitious goal of the project - identifying the precise sequence of each of the 3 billion bases in human DNA.
Once the entire sequence has been spelled out, the meaning of the genetic code must be deciphered and the function of each gene determined. Otherwise, sequencing the genome would be like buying an encyclopedia written in Sanskrit.
And even then, knowing the sequence is not the same as having a treatment or cure - the project's ultimate goal.
by CNB