Genomics research may be dead end (American Spectator article).
This is an overall positive article on the Celera researchers who are not trying to hide breakthrough scientific understanding, even it does potentially undermine their business model.
The human genome project has produced a book that we can't read, becasue it turns out it's not a book that makes sense by interpretating it as a linear sequence of codes. It's more a one-dimensional projection of a multi-dimensional puzzle interacting with protein game the genome produces. ^_^
spectator.org
[...]
"[O]ur understanding of the human genome has changed
in the most fundamental ways. The small number of
genes -- some 30,000 -- supports the notion that we
are not hard wired. We now know the notion that one
gene leads to one protein, and perhaps one disease, is
false.
[...]
Nonetheless, Celera's message is not likely to comfort
investors. Gene therapy holds out less promise as a
result of this new understanding. At the press
conference, a journalist asked Francis Collins if the
smaller number of genes would make medical advances
easier or more difficult. "I would say easier," he
said. Every gene search is like trying to find a
needle in a haystack. "Guess what? The haystack just
got three times smaller." But when another journalist
asked a similar question about the genes interacting
combinatorially, Collins retreated from the haystack
metaphor. The straw interacts with itself, and the
needle has other objects bumping into it, he allowed.
Craig Venter said more simply that when you consider
there is maybe a "tenfold expansion" in the number of
proteins compared to the number of genes, it "does
indicate increased complexity."
Celera will no doubt continue to sell its genome
information to the big research institutions, to the
pharmaceuticals, and to other biotechs -- for a while
at least. And the biotechs with patents will continue
to charge high prices to screen for "predisposing"
genes; or for the rare but real disease-causing
defects.
[...]
[ Not all biotechs have the integrity of Celera: ]
[...]
To some biotechs the new announcement came as
something of an embarrassment. As Andrew Pollack
pointed out in the New York Times: "Incyte Genomics
advertises access to 120,000 human genes, including
60,000 not available from any other source. Human
Genome Sciences says it has identified 100,000 human
genes, and Double Twist 65,000 to 105,000. Affymetrix
sells DNA-analysis chips containing 60,000 genes."
Some of these genes have already been patented, but
"if genes are not the whole story," Pollack added, "it
also means those patents could be worth less." Or
worthless. Venter told the London Observer that the
head of a biotech company had phoned him in some
distress because he had already done a deal with
SmithKline Beecham to sell them the details of 100,000
genes. "Where am I going to get the rest?" the man
asked. How long before someone starts comparing genes
to tulips?
[ Kind of hard to do when there are only 30,000 genes ^_^ ]
[...] |
