Their work, to be released tomorrow, is predicted to lead to new therapies for many of the diseases associated with the chromosomes, including prostate cancer and Alzheimer's. We believe our efforts, our intellectual gift to the world, are providing a vast array of clues to other researchers as to why these diseases arise, and therefore opening up new ways of diagnosing and treating them. The full results from the HGP are to be published in Nature magazine. The work of Celera, an American genome-sequencing company set up in rivalry to the HGP, will be published simultaneously in Science. This weekend, Dr Craig Venter, a scientist at Celera, said researchers on both projects had been startled by how few genes they had found in the human genome.
Some biologists claim they pre-programme virtually every human trait from hair colour to sexuality.
Our environments are critical. However, given that the genome has three billion bases in total, it needed a massive international research effort. This led to the birth of the HGP in 1990. Each chromosome carries thousands of genes that act as blueprints for the manufacture of proteins and so ultimately control everything that goes on in the body. Genes on chromosome 1 are associated with Alzheimer's disease and prostate cancer.