Washington Editor

One of the scientists credited with mapping the human genome will lead three not-for-profit groups toward opening a lab where genomes will be expected to be sequenced quickly, accurately and at a cost-effective price.

Craig Venter, the private-sector scientist who became the face of the human genome project, last week told the media his newest venture will be creating a next-generation high-throughput DNA sequencing facility in Rockville, Md. The lab is being developed in conjunction with The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR), the Institute for Biological Energy Alternatives (IBEA) and The Center for the Advancement of Genomics (TCAG), all not-for-profit organizations founded by Venter and supported by the J. Craig Venter Science Foundation. The new facility has not been named but will be supported by the Venter Science Foundation as well.

The work being conducted at the facility is the type of science that eventually will lead to decoding individual genomes to determine predisposition to disease, he said.

When asked how many years it will take to advance to that point, Venter told BioWorld Today: "That's not clear. But what we are doing is basic research, so it could be three to five years, or it could be 10 years.

"Right now we are trying to get to the point where we are able to do that for people, and then we can decide, if it is feasible, where it is best to do that kind of work," Venter said.

Formerly the president and chief scientific officer at Rockville-based Celera Genomics, Venter resigned his position in the commercial industry in January for research.

His new lab would help increase the sequencing capacity at TIGR, the 10-year-old institute run by his wife, Claire Fraser. "The sequencing capacity at TIGR is at a maximum - it's doing 40 concurrent genome projects now and we've got a tremendous demand for a whole lot more," Venter said.

Scientists at TIGR sequenced the first two complete DNA sequences of bacterial genomes in 1995 - Haemophilus influenzae and Mycoplasma genitalium - paving the way for completion of other genomes.

So far, two plants, yeast, a worm, a human, a mouse, a fruit fly and various environmental microbes and human pathogens have been sequenced. However, considering that there are more than 1 million species and more than 6 billion people living on the planet, scientists have a long way to go before putting a dent in the work ahead.

That's where Venter's planned 40,000-square-foot research lab comes in. The 100 or so employees will use the latest in automated DNA sequencing, supercomputing, networking and high-performance storage technologies. Particularly, the facility will use advanced technologies such as GeneEngine, a high-speed, comprehensive genomics analysis platform owned by Woburn, Mass.-based U.S. Genomics.

Eugene Chan, chairman and CEO of U.S. Genomics, said GeneEngine allows a scientist to read DNA "very much like a tickertape."

Regarding U.S. Genomics' interest in the Venter project, Chan told BioWorld Today: "Certainly, Dr. Venter and I share a vision in terms of where we want to see genomics go. The shared vision is the ability to be able to access individual genomic information for individuals for the 6 billion people on the planet and to be able to do that rapidly."

Late last week, Chan released a statement saying Venter had been named to U.S. Genomics' board of directors and had become a scientific advisor to the company.