The brouhaha among the collaborators on the Human Genome Project is a case in point. Craig Venter, president and CEO of Celera Genomics, has been the only private researcher involved in the collaborative effort to sequence the human genome. His for-profit laboratory is just one of six centers working on the project. Everyone should have known that including Craig Venter in the collaboration was risky, if not downright foolish. After all, Venter is the quintessential entrepreneur.
ESTs are segments of DNA, as they occur in the human body, but without known function.
That is, ESTs are ordered segments of the As, Cs, Ts, and Gs, that form the language of genetics, but the precise function of these ordered segments within the genome is unknown. Heretofore, organisms as they appeared in nature have not been patentable. If we are going to keep the human genome from being held hostage by entrepreneurial interests, we must avoid entanglements with private research companies like Celera Genomics. That will mean that if we are to realize the benefits of the human genome project and the therapeutics spun off the project, we will have to devote more research dollars to basic research. This, of course, will require legislators who are familiar with and committed to funding basic scientific research.