After an exhausting final sprint by thousands of scientists, two sequences of the human genome were revealed to the world on Feb. 12, 2001, to great acclaim, one by the National Institutes of Health, the other by J. Craig Venter’s Celera.
So why are the National Institutes of Health and the Smithsonian Institution celebrating the 10th anniversary of the sequencing of the human genome this year?
They didn’t miss a deadline or mess up the math. By designating 2003 as the year the genome was sequenced, the NIH is still fighting against Celera. NIH is laying exclusive claim for credit and trying to push its rival out of the history books. It’s trying to give the leaders of the public consortium an edge in the battle for the inevitable Nobel Prize.
Read the full, original story here: Watch Francis Collins Lunge for the Nobel Prize
Additional Resources:
- “The Real Reason Craig Venter May Deserve A Nobel Prize,” Forbes
- “Who Owns the Genome?” New Atlantis
- “The Public-Private Ruckus Over the Human Genome,” Time
