In a packed hotel ballroom Monday, key scientists from the public and private venture took the stage to speak to the press. The public scientists gathered on one side, the Celera group on the other. During his introductions, Venter did not restrain himself from referring to the differences in salaries earned by the two groups, by the realities of stock options for one and not the other. As if competing, Collins asked a member of his team to name the number of hits that the Web site of public DNA sequence database receives each day from researchers around the globe. Five hundred thousand hits a day, the press was told.
Nobody doubts which side holds the advantage in that race.
The genome project, which is getting massive media attention as it nears completion, is just a first, crude step. The research that has the potential to change medicine is happening largely out of the limelight, at places like Gene Logic in suburban Washington. The nature-nurture debate is perennial, but recently genes have been thought to dictate key human behaviors. New research and old cast doubts on this assumption.