Race to complete mouse genome

A public-private consortium that includes the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the UK's Wellcome Trust has announced a £39m ($58) plan to sequence the entire mouse genome by February 2001. The genetic information of the mouse is seen as the 'Rosetta stone' that will enable researchers to determine the function of many human genes.

The pledge marks the start of another 'race' against private firm Celera Genomics, who jointly announced the completion of the human genome along with the publicly-funded Human Genome Project (HGP) earlier this year. But unlike the HGP, Celera will charge subscribers for access to its processed human gene data. Craig Venter, head of Celera, said his company had already sequenced the genomes of three different strains of mice, two of them to 90 per cent completion. He accused the NIH of 'duplicating efforts' and 'wasting public money'.

The new consortium, which includes firms SmithKline Beecham, Merck and Affymetrix, says it will sequence a strain of mouse different to those being studied by Celera. A spokesman for SmithKline Beecham said that the importance of having the mouse genome publicly available was a driving factor in their proposal to set up the consortium.