Summary

As the publicly funded Human Genome Project was getting underway, a neurobiologist named Craig Venter began his own private venture to sequence the human genome. Venter planned to use a different method which would be faster than the methods used by the Human Genome Project, but which took shortcuts that his opponents argued would result in a fragmentary and incomplete genome. Venter's opponents also criticized his efforts to patent gene fragments as well as the for-profit aspects of his venture. The two ventures, public and private, continued toward the same goal for many years, each making progress with their different methods and philosophical approaches. In 2000, the US government intervened to unite the two projects in a kind of truce in which they would announce their success in mapping the entire human genome at the same time. This monumental announcement took place...