The gold rush is on, time to pan for the good genes and tame the bad ones. Life in the Genomic Wild West is already producing financial paydirt while mining the human genome for advanced new blockbuster drugs. Corporate shootouts are already taking place, with companies and researchers feuding over profits and scientific primacy and fame, as well as patenting rights and marketing approvals even more valuable than yellow metal nuggets. First to market with a new and highly effective drug normally wins. Right now, for example, Amgen Inc., the world's biggest biotechnology company, is fighting a big patent infringement suit against Transkaryotic Therapies Inc. and Aventis over Amgen's blockbuster anemia-fighting drug Epogen, a drug developed from genes.
Billions are at stake.
Lawyers for other biotech companies are sitting in the U.S. District Court trial in New York taking notes and patrolling the halls to glean tidbits of potentially useful information for their clients. In the new world of molecular genetic medicine, the computer has become the most important tool for drug discovery. Powerful computers are key to genomics research. We couldn't do any work without them,'' said scientist Lincoln Stein, an associate professor at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. Automated computerized sifting of human, animal, plant and microorganism genomes could unlock the secrets of cancer, the complexities of diabetes, heart disease, strokes, the mysteries of degenerative brain conditions such as Lou Gehrig's Disease, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, Huntington's, or mental illness and birth defects.