The Gene Machine

To the consternation of his rivals, Craig Venter may have the human DNA 100% mapped by summer

Craig Venter has no shortage of rivals who would love to see him fail--especially among scientists at the Human Genome Project, the multibillion-dollar government-sponsored effort to map every one of our 100,000 genes. When the millionaire molecular geneticist announced in 1998 that his company, Celera Genomics, would do the job in a third of the time at no cost to the taxpayer (thereby making the Genome Project seem like a wasted effort), the scientific community was split into two camps--one group of researchers hoping he could make good on his promise, the other predicting he would fall flat on his face.

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