Announcement of map of the human genome more business success than scientific breakthrough
June 7, 2000
NORTON, Mass. -- The announcement that a private company has completed a map of the human genome may signal a winner in the race for profits, but much work remains to call the map of the human genome complete, says Wheaton College Professor of Biology and genetics researcher Betsey Dyer.
Professor Dyer, who is co-leading an interdisciplinary effort to decipher the genetic code, was interviewed by The Christian Science Monitor for a June 7th article that explores the legal, economic and medical implications of the human genome mapping project's completion. (Visit http://www.csmonitor.com/durable/2000/06/07/fp1s1-csm.shtml for the complete story.)
While it is certainly a big milestone,'' Dyer said, the announcement has more economic significance than scientific importance. This company is calling the mapping of the human genome completed, but there is still an awful lot of work to be done to check the information and to make it useable.''
At the moment, the pages and pages of code resemble an ancient manuscript without a Rosetta Stone to decipher it.
Imagine that you have the entire works of Shakespeare in front of you, with no spaces and no grammar, and you don't know English,'' Dyer explained. The tools we are developing take a long string of 'words' and create a kind of grammar and syntax for the human genome, making it readable.''
Dyer and her colleague, Associate Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science Mark Le Blanc, both professors at Wheaton College in Norton, Mass., are developing computer tools to assist in the deciphering of the genetic code.
Funded by the National Science Foundation, Dyer and LeBlanc are using computers and algorithms to uncover DNA's rules of grammar. Wheaton undergraduates are also assisting in the long-term research project; two students are working with the professors this summer with support from the college's newly established Mars Faculty-Student Collaborative Research Fellowships.
The discovery tools they are developing enable a user to find regulatory sequences in the genetic code. The all-important regulatory sequences are the pieces of code that, for example, instruct eyes to develop in the front of the head instead of all over the body.
While we are certainly not the only people working on this project, the field is wide open and needs more researchers to work on this so the tools will become available faster,'' Dyer said. It will take many hands many years to uncover all the tools needed to make these genome maps usable.''