Near the end of November, the Human Genome Project passed a major milestone: the sequencing of 1 billion base pairs or one-third of the human genome. At a celebration held at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C., Energy Secretary Bill Richardson called it "an historic day, not only for the advancement of international science but also for the Department of Energy (DOE)."

Although 16 institutions worldwide are participating in the project, most of the genome sequencing is being done at five locations: Whitehead Institute, Washington University College of Medicine, Baylor College of Medicine, the DOE Joint Genome Institute, and Sanger Centre. The U.S. Human Genome Project is supported by DOE and the NIH National Human Genome Research Institute.

Referring to DOE's long-standing mission to understand and characterize the potential health risks related to energy use and production, Richardson spoke of the awesome challenge faced by DOE when it launched the genome project in 1986. He continued, "The results of the Human Genome Program—the map of our genetic material and the technologies to discover it—will arm health researchers with the gene-finding and DNA-analysis tools necessary to unravel and understand the countless human diseases with their roots in DNA."

"With the Human Genome Program, we are building a bold foundation for what will be a century of exploration and discovery in the life sciences. In the next century, the benefits of genomics research today will not only serve to advance human health but will also serve to benefit many other areas of science as well."

Richardson pointed out the key role played by DOE in the genome project both as a science agency and as a builder of sophisticated research tools needed to reach the genome project's scientific goals. He said that DOE has developed technologies for sequencing instruments now being used by every major public and private DNA sequencing lab in the world; advanced the state-of-the-art in automation, robotics, and computational science that has led to faster, more cost-efficient DNA sequencing; and established the first centralized database for the storage and public access to the sequence data produced in the historic project.

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