'A Day for the Ages'

WASHINGTON, June 26 (AP)--Government and private scientists announced Monday they have virtually completed the first rough map of the human genetic code, an achievement President Bill Clinton called "a day for the ages."

Clinton, joined at the White House announcement by British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who appeared by satellite transmission, hailed completion of the work after a 10-year race that cost billions.

"Today we are learning the language in which God created life," Clinton said. "We are gaining ever more awe for the complexity, the beauty, the wonder, of God's most divine and sacred gift."

He called the achievement a "day for the ages," and likened it to Galileo's celestial searchings and the mapping of the American wild by explorers Lewis and Clark. He also cautioned that the genetic map must never be used to segregate, discriminate, or invade the privacy of human beings.

Francis Collins, head of the Human Genome Project of the U.S. National Institutes of Health, said the breakthrough allows humans for the first time to read "our own instruction book. Today, we celebrate the revelation of the first draft of the human book of life."

Said Blair: "Let us be in no doubt about what we are witnessing today: A revolution in medical science whose implications far surpass even the discovery of antibiotics, the first great technological triumph of the 21st century."

At a news conference in London, hours ahead of the one in Washington here, the Human Genome Project announced that scientists had decoded the 3.1 billion sub-units of DNA, the chemical "letters" that make up the recipe of human life.

The chemical mapping for more than 90% of human DNA, seen as one of history's great scientific milestones, has been keenly fought over, and the Human Genome Project initially embargoed the information for its joint announcement in Washington with the private company, Celera Genomics, of Rockville, Md.

But an announcement so significant proved impossible to suppress, and British media immediately reported the news conference.

To map the human genome, the publicly financed Human Genome Project and the parallel private effort by Celera had to decipher some 3.1 billion sub-units of DNA, the chemical letters that code biological workings of humans.

Within the DNA there are an estimated 50,000 or more genes. These determine what a person inherits from parents and how well the cells function through out a lifetime. Flawed or missing genes can cause disease.

Mapping the entire human genome is seen as one of history's great scientific milestones, the biological equivalent of the moon landing.

Now, "the real work begins," Collins said in advance of Clinton's announcement.

"We've been racing down white water in a narrow channel trying to get the sequencing done," Collins said in an interview. "Now we're opening into the ocean" where the research possibilities and the effects on medicine are almost limitless.

Continued on page 2: »