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FORGET the Olympics. This summer’s most exciting competition has nothing to
do with sport. We’re in the home straight of one of the most important contests
of all time: the race to sequence the human genome.

It’s not a big field—just two serious contenders. In one lane, you’ll
find the Human Genome Project, a consortium of labs funded mainly by the US
government and the Wellcome Trust, the world’s largest medical research charity.
Its rival is Celera Genomics in Maryland, headed by Craig Venter, biotech’s
answer to Bill Gates. The two are neck and neck, and going flat out for the
finishing line. Both claim they’ll have a draft of the entire genome ready by
the summer.

It’s a peculiar race, because all the winner gets is kudos. The real prizes
are scattered back along the track, waiting to be collected as soon as someone
recognises them for what they are. The prizes are sequences of DNA that will be
used to find, diagnose and treat diseases. Not only will these sequences save
lives, they will also make millionaires.

Driven by this commercial promise, Venter is firing his sequence data
straight into a database which subscribers pay to access. At the same time, he’s
applying for patents on any stretch of DNA he thinks might be of value.
Meanwhile, the not-for-profit consortium is committed to free access to sequence
data. It is publishing its sequences daily on the Internet. Part of the reason
for doing this is that once something has been made public it cannot be
patented. The consortium hopes to limit Venter’s influence.

Why is the consortium worried? Well, many of the DNA sequences sitting in
Venter’s patent applications are from genes of unknown function. Many may well
be under investigation by medical scientists elsewhere. If those researchers
discover the function of a gene, and find out later that Venter has patented it,
they may need his permission to do further work on it and even have to pay for
the privilege. John Sulston of the Human Genome Project argues that this way of
working is plain silly, and will slow the search for drugs
(see p 46).

Ideally, the two sides should cooperate. But the signs are not hopeful.
Venter recently completed a successful collaboration with publicly funded labs
in Britain and the US to sequence the fruit fly’s genome. In return, Venter was
given three months for him and his customers to search the DNA for valuable
genes. The genome is now published and open to all.

Why can’t the same happen with the human genome? The two parties have talked
about collaboration. But according to the Wellcome Trust, one sticking point is
Venter’s reluctance to make public any data that he thinks is of value. He also
wants five years control over access to the genome before it is opened up to all
other scientists.

Which brings us back to the present state, in which Venter hopes to patent
hundreds of DNA sequences, which could give him control over hundreds of genes
for 20 years. This strategy does, however, face at least one hurdle: some patent
offices, including the one in the US, have decided it is not acceptable to
patent DNA sequences that have no known function.

To be patentable, an invention must be novel and have a use. But how can a
DNA sequence whose function is unknown have a use, other than in the broadest
terms such as “it may be useful for diagnosing and treating disease”?

There is also a more basic question: should genes alone, even if we know what
they do, be patentable? They are not, after all, inventions. At this point,
drugs companies complain that without patents their industry will disappear. We
agree. Patents are vital if people and companies are to invest in research.

But that doesn’t mean that genes alone should be patentable. Look at the
periodic table of elements. The fact that this basic resource has always been
open to all hasn’t stopped thousands of companies thriving on patented
inventions, be they chemical entities or processes. The same is true of the
human genome. Thousands of patents—for diagnostic tests and
treatments—will flow from newly discovered genes. But the genome itself
must be open to everyone.