Toasting the Chromosomes

Geneticists worldwide took part in a celebration last week that was sure to rival any millennium bash, complete with the pop of the champagne, toasts to the past and the proclamation of resolutions for the coming years. To outsiders, it may have seemed that the labcoat-clad revelers had somehow confused the first of December with the first of January. But for those in the scientific community, there seemed a no more appropriate time to recognize the possibility that the elusive "promise" of the future might be tenable after all.

Both the festivity and the pervading spirit of optimism could be traced to an declaration last Wednesday that researchers working on the Human Genome Project had successfully decoded an entire human chromosome--an incredible milestone for the field of genetics and for science in general. For those unfamiliar with the history behind the announcement, the Human Genome Project is a public initiative that was started in 1990 and that involves a consortium of universities from around the world (it is financed in the United States by the National Institutes of Health). The ultimate goal is to map each and every segment of DNA that composes the 23 pairs of human chromosomes.

It is an effort that truly embodies the spirit of global cooperation. The principal research is conducted at two large-scale industrial laboratories: the Sanger Centre in England and Washington University in St. Louis. The team decoding this particular chromosome (Chromosome 22--chosen because it is the shortest) also included scientists at Keio University in Japan and at the University of Oklahoma. Together, they produced a novel-length string of letters that identify the thousand or so genes at all points along the chromosome.

As the project picks up speed--team members predict that, having cleared this first hurdle, the remaining 22 chromosomes should be mapped by the projected 2005 completion date--the debate around the nature of the work is reaching a fevered pitch. If millennium doomsdayers seem frightening with their predictions of global demise, they don't hold a candle to the groups that claim that the Human Genome Project is the first step towards an existence straight out of Huxley's Brave New World.

It's true that the discoveries of the initiative are available to the public. And thanks to the electronic superhighway, the gene sequences are available on the Internet with a click of the mouse. So the possibility of a mad scientist-type downloading the information for his (or her) own spurious purposes is not all that far-fetched.

But although we may be opening a Pandora's Box of sorts by attempting to determine the exact nature of what makes each individual a human, there are many ways in which humanity can benefit from the project. On Chromosome 22 alone, scientists have identified more than 20 genes that can often cause fatal diseases when defective, including the genes for DiGeorge and cat eye syndromes. Knowing the exact location of these genes is the first step towards finding ways to cure or even prevent such diseases. And by comparing the human genome to the genetic code of other organisms, we can begin to find answers to some of our most basic questions about evolution.

In light of the incredible possibility that the project holds, there is every reason to press onward. As for the danger of posting the sequences on the Web, such a risk is infinitely preferable to the danger of keeping such vital information as some sort of government secret.