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Mar. 6th, 2002 04:45 pmApparently my erstwhile boss-of-bosses, John Sulston, is going to be getting some sort of tabloidy award on an ITV show called "Pride of Britain", or something equally vapid.
This is for a) getting the human genome sequenced, b) making sure the evil corporate capitalists didn't end up with a stranglehold on it, and c) dissing Darth Venter, repeatedly and effectively.
The latest piece of (entirely justified) Celera-bashing is reported here. This isn't, incidentally, a simple piece of spleen-venting, no matter what Celera claim. There are serious implications for the sequencing of future large genomes. If we're right, then exclusively following their method is never likely to be a serious option. FWIW, I did a quick back-of-envelope calculation yesterday concerning the sequencing that contributed to Celera's assembly - 60% of it was done by the public project and lifted by them )as they were entirely entitled to do) off our servers. Their original public statement when they were founded said that they were going to do at least twice as much sequencing as they actually did, and made no mention of using our data, because they assumed that we'd give up and go home.
This didn't happen largely because of the Wellcome Trust and people like Sulston, who insisted that the only sort of genomic knowledge worth aiming at was free to all without charge or restriction. As the media are trying to take an unbiassed middle path between this and the commercial line, I'd like to make it quite clear that Celera getting what they originally seemed to be aiming at would have been an unmitigated disaster.
Don't ever say that there isn't any good news. It just doesn't always get reported very well.
This is for a) getting the human genome sequenced, b) making sure the evil corporate capitalists didn't end up with a stranglehold on it, and c) dissing Darth Venter, repeatedly and effectively.
The latest piece of (entirely justified) Celera-bashing is reported here. This isn't, incidentally, a simple piece of spleen-venting, no matter what Celera claim. There are serious implications for the sequencing of future large genomes. If we're right, then exclusively following their method is never likely to be a serious option. FWIW, I did a quick back-of-envelope calculation yesterday concerning the sequencing that contributed to Celera's assembly - 60% of it was done by the public project and lifted by them )as they were entirely entitled to do) off our servers. Their original public statement when they were founded said that they were going to do at least twice as much sequencing as they actually did, and made no mention of using our data, because they assumed that we'd give up and go home.
This didn't happen largely because of the Wellcome Trust and people like Sulston, who insisted that the only sort of genomic knowledge worth aiming at was free to all without charge or restriction. As the media are trying to take an unbiassed middle path between this and the commercial line, I'd like to make it quite clear that Celera getting what they originally seemed to be aiming at would have been an unmitigated disaster.
Don't ever say that there isn't any good news. It just doesn't always get reported very well.
