The biotech century has begun in right earnest with the announcement of the first draft of the human genome. It is a strange start to what has been deemed one of the most momentous scientific revolutions. For, by painstakingly maping the genome, scientists have actually arrived at the starting block of this revolution, not at its triumphant end. In effect, the two competing camps the intergovernmental Human Genome Project and maverick Craig Venter's privately funded programme have taken James Watson and Francis Crick's 1953 discovery of the double helix structure of DNA to its logical conclusion. ``We've discovered the secret of life,'' Crick proclaimed in a pub that February; ``we've compiled the book of life,'' is the rallying cry of scientists today. It is a mindboggling accomplishment: they have listed the 3.1 billion character chain that makes us what we are. Now in the decades ahead, researchers will slowly ascend up the double helix and identify what function each DNA sequence could be associatedwith.The possibilities are endless. For starters, a gene that predisposes one to Alzheimer's disease has been identified. At the moment it may simply amount to letting a could-be victim know of his chances of ending up with the syndrome and offering some basic precautions (like avoiding a career in boxing), but scientists hope to determine how to administer gene therapy. Based on the genome map, clinical trials are already underway for certain types of cancer. And as in any endeavour that carries endless possibilities, critics have been busy chanting the endless dangers therein. While announcing the successful first draft on Monday, US President Bill Clinton cautioned that this great body of scientific knowledge should not be utilised to segregate and stigmatise. The dangers are evident: parents could abort foetuses with `substandard' genetic profiles; employers could screen employees for genetic predisposition to tantrums and to stamina; insurance companies could check for a client's inclination towards certainailments. Privacy laws must thus be made ever more stringent to check against unauthorised disclosure. Moreover, there is the discomforting prospect of the nature vs nurture debate tilting towards the former. But as Matt Ridley cautions in Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters: "(Genetic determinists) forget that genes need to be switched on, and external events or free-willed behaviour can switch on genes. Far from us lying at the mercy of our omnipotent genes, it is often our genes that lie at the mercy of `us'." There is also the repugnant pro-spect that many useful gene sequences could already have been patented by men like Venter.Yet, it would be shortsighted at this point to get completely caught up in such nitty-gritty. Scientific milestones come just a few times every generation; it would be tragic if one did not capture the magic of the moment. From the aesthetic simplicity of the code, the fact that it lends itself to further unraveling with advances in computing power, and the stunning commonality in the genetic make-up of fruit flies and humans. the message in the genome seems to be the resounding unity of life.
