The Impact of the Human Genome Project on the Scientific and Business World

In every field of study known to man, there are always certain topics of controversy, the patenting of sections of the human genome is one such debateable topic. On one side, scientific discoveries should be the property of everyone, and on the other side the belief is that monetary gain was necessary to keep pushing scientific discovery forward. I believe that there are many different circumstances which determined what side was right.

At the beginning of the Human Genome Project, the goal for everyone involved was one thing, to complete the mapping of the human genome, which contained about 100,000 genes. The genes were mapped using dyed bacteria in the early phases of the project. Due to the slow process of this mapping method, the original expectancy date for its completion was pushed back from the original 15 year goal, (I believe that they should have just admitted that they had no idea when it was going to be completed).Many weren’t concerned with the increasing time to complete it, but others were completely dissatisfied with the results being put out -- enter Dr. J. Craig Venter.

The founder and president of Celera sequenced the entire human genome in a tiny portion of the time it took all government projects to complete their part of the genome and at a fraction of the cost of the public project, approximately $3 billion of taxpayer dollars compared to the $300 million in private funding. However, a significant amount of our genome had already been sequenced when Celera entered the playing field, and therefore Celera did not have to pay for the genes that had already been identified with obtaining the existing data, which was readily available for the public through GenBank. (I don’t think this would cost them much more than 50 million dollars than what they already spent, so this doesn’t change much.) Celera's use of the shotgun strategy pushed the public HGP to change its own strategy, and resulting in a rapid acceleration of the public effort which helped us complete the sequencing faster.

Although Celera did sequence the genes much faster than the government labs, their innocent motives began to get darker when they realised how much money they could make off of something like this. They, among other private businesses decided to patent the gene codes so that they could charge a large amount for cures developed from said genes, (which was really messed up). This was unfavorable for both other businesses and those who needed the drugs being developed. If there was one company who patented the drug, then they could charge whatever they wanted to without fear of losing customers. In other words, they were creating monopolies in the drug industry.

In 1998, when the Institute for Genomic Research and the Perkin Elmer Corporation announced that they were going to collaborate to finish sequencing the human genome, the government realised that they needed to hurry, they gave funding to 7 other companies so that they could complete sequencing the genome in order to prevent the private corporations from patenting any more sections of the genome. However, in 2003, the supreme court sided with the public research centers and stopped the acceptance of any more patent requests regarding genetic material as it was “a product of nature”. This put an end to the race for the human genome.

In conclusion, the Human Genome Project not only affected the scientific world but also the business world. It has shown the risk of letting private businesses take over major projects. Both sides of science are in the right, science should be readily available to the public, but there should be funding using tax dollars because money is needed for scientific development.