文档介绍：2. A glimpse of the secrets of Life
Several months ago, Bill Clinton and Tony Blair linked up1 to proclaim2 one of science's greatest achievements:decoding the human genome3 or “ book of life”. In February scientists get their first look at the evidence, with the official publication4 of the human genome sequence5 in the journals6 Nature and Science.
The two rival7 anizations--the Public Human Genome Project and Celera, the US pany--have produced scores8 of scientific papers. Their most striking9 conclusion is how few genes we have: around 30,000. That is about the same number as a mouse and only twice as many as a fruit fly or a worm. Most scientists had expected to find about 100,000 human genes and some estimates ran to10 140,000 genes.
Eric Lander, director of the Whitehead Centre for Genome Research in the US, says: “ It seems to be some kind of affront11 to human dignity12.”
Biologists will have to stop thinking of individual genes giving the body instructions to make individual proteins13 (proteins are the molecules14 such as hormones15 and enzymes16 that control biological processes). Instead, all our DNA--the genome--must be seen as one plex system.
As Craig Venter, president of Celera, puts it, “ There are no ‘ good’ genes or ‘ bad’ genes, works that exist at various levels and various connectivities, and at different states of sensitivity to perturbation17