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DNA map unlikely to be used for ‘designer people’

Washington, London – Scientists who’ve announced virtual completion of the
human genetic pattern, say the knowledge is unlikely to be used to build
designer people or change patterns of heredity.

The human genes are the biological directions for the formation and functioning
of a person.

And some people fear that science will change genes so that succeeding
generations will inherit these changes.

Dr Francis Collins, of the National Human Genome Research Institute in
Washington, says so little is known about the one million or so proteins that
are made by genes that attempting to permanently manipulate the germline is
fraught with dangers.

Mr Collins says he knows of no-one who’d want to go into the germline because
of the real safety and ethical issues.

Earlier today President Clinton joined a government project and private venture
in announcing virtual completion of the first rough map of the human genetic
code, an achievement Clinton called “a day for the ages”.

Clinton, joined at the White House announcement by British Prime Minister Tony
Blair, who appeared by satellite transmission, hailed completion of the work
after a 10-year race that cost billions.

Clinton, who had helped calm a bitter rivalry between public and private groups
racing to complete the genome map, beamed with pride at the announcement before
a large gathering at the White House.

“Today we are learning the language in which God created life,” Clinton
said. “We are gaining ever more awe for the complexity, the beauty, the wonder
of God’s most divine and sacred gift.”

He called the achievement a “day for the ages,” and likened it to Galileo’s
celestial searchings and the mapping of the American wild by explorers Lewis
and Clark. He also cautioned that the genetic map must never be used to
segregate, discriminate or invade the privacy of human beings.

Dr Collins said the breakthrough lets humans for the first time read “our own
instruction book. Today, we celebrate the revelation of the first draft of the
human book of life.”

Said Blair: “Let us be in no doubt about what we are witnessing today: A
revolution in medical science whose implications far surpass even the discovery
of antibiotics, the first great technological triumph of the 21st century.”

At a press conference in London, hours ahead the one scheduled here, the Human
Genome Project announced that scientists had decoded the 3.1 billion sub-units
of DNA, the chemical “letters” that make up the recipe of human life.

The chemical mapping for more than 90 per cent of human DNA, seen as one of
history’s great scientific milestones, has been keenly fought over, and the
Human Genome Project initially embargoed the information with its joint
announcement in Washington with the private company, Celera Genomics, of
Rockville, Maryland.

But an announcement so significant proved impossible to suppress, and British
media immediately reported the news conference.

To map the human genome, the publicly financed Human Genome Project and the
parallel private effort by Celera had to decipher some 3.1 billion sub-units of
DNA, the chemical letters that code biological workings of humans.

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