Publication of human gene map on the Internet

For the first time, a fully decoded human gene map has been published on the Internet. The owner of the gene map and the decoder is the famous scientist Craig Venter, who led the company Celera Genomics that laid the foundation for the study of genetic mapping in the world.

Venter's genetic map of genes inherited from his parents was published in the electronic journal PLoS Biology , so that other researchers could take this as a reference to compare their DNA sequences. the others.

Scientist Craig Venter (Photo: Canadian Press)

Venter's DNA sequence shows that he is very likely to have blue eye color - and in fact it is. He is also more likely to have high cholesterol . In fact, his father died of heart disease at age 59, but his 84-year-old mother still plays golf twice a week. This thorough "reading of health history" can help medicine set out precautions for each person.

Venter said that in the next five years, less expensive and faster analytical techniques will help decode 10,000 gene maps, initiating "the human genome decoding" to document health. healthy for each individual. However, some scientists note caution with the possibility of abuse of private health information.

In addition, according to Craig Venter, "for a long time we thought we were genetically similar at 99.9%, but it turns out we are only 99.5% identical." In other words, the latest decoding results show huge genetic differences between humans. If you envision the human genome as a " Life Book ", they are made up of about three billion letters - ie pairs of nucleotides. Each page has about 100,000 letters and each book has about 25,000 - 30,000 pages.

TH.TU