As predicted last week on the CrashList, Britain's Sanger Centre for genome research, based in Cambridge, has won the race to decode the human 'book of life'. Commentators are calling it the greatest step in human understanding since Tycho Brahe's observations of planetary movements led to the heliocentric model of the universe. The struggle between British publicly-funded science and US GE monopolies has assumed intense ideological proportions. The struggle to decode the human genome became a race between American GE firm Celera, and British publicly-funded science, with its commitment to open access to genomic code and rejection of the privatisation of human genes.
According to agreements announced today, the preliminary 'First Draft' of the 'Book of Life' will be jointly published by the Sanger Centre and Celera; Venter has abandoned the race and is to concentrate on follow-up research. The human genome will not be privatised.
Mark Jones http://www.egroups.com/group/CrashList