Important Studies on Human Genetic Code Due out Today
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Now to this morning's other big science story: the latest breakthrough in decoding the human genome. Scientists are publishing two studies today that provide the first look at the human genetic code. Cracking the genetic code could lead to future advancements in finding the causes and possible cures for various diseases. CNN science correspondent Ann Kellan explains where scientists are now and where they may be headed.</s>ANN KELLAN, CNN SCIENCE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is a detailed map of our genome. The lines represent billions of chemical letters, or DNA, contained in every one of our cells. About 1 percent of these letters are genes that dictate how our bodies grow and function while the rest, scientists suspect, are mostly leftovers from our past.</s>ERIC LANDER, WHITEHEAD CENTER FOR GENOME RESEARCH: We clean out the attic so rarely in our DNA, and it's great because it means the DNA is a history book.</s>KELLAN: Two separate groups have been in a race to crack the human code. Last June, both announced they had completed rough drafts. Now both versions are getting the endorsement of the scientific community. A private company, Celera Genomics, is publishing its genome in "Science." A public international effort led by the United States government is publishing in the British journal "Nature." Both sequences are still incomplete and differ slightly from each other, but overall the findings are similar. Now scientists will start to figure out what this massive map means. Already they find we don't have as many genes as we once thought. Genes determine everything from the color of our eyes, our skin color, to how well we fight disease. We have about 30,000, approximately the same as a dog.</s>CRAIG VENTER, CELERA GENOMICS: We have essentially the same components as all other mammals. My dog or, you know, cats, mice, rats, people all share basically the same building set.</s>KELLAN: And the differences between one person and another, genetically speaking, is tiny. Knowing the genetic landscape will make it easier for scientists to study what each gene does and how they instruct cells to make key proteins. Those proteins perform basic human functions that keep us alive. A slight variation in the genetic code could predispose a person to disease.</s>LANDER: I think it means that we'll now be able to try to track down the actual causes of disease. What most folks don't realize is that we don't really know the cause of asthma, of heart disease, of diabetes, of hypertension.</s>KELLAN: It's unclear how long that process will take. Most experts agree we won't see the true payoff for at least 20 and maybe 100 years.</s>PHILLIPS: All right, Ann: 100 years -- why now why will it take so long to make major breakthroughs?</s>KELLAN: Well, this is the genetic code, so this is just the code in our nucleus of all the cells that tell the rest of the cell what to do. So now that we have the code and we know where the code is -- and that has been a monumental undertaking -- we have to figure out what it does, we have to figure out when the genes are turned on and off and how they convince the rest of the cells to do the work it does to make us what we are. So it's a monumental undertaking. They've made major strides already, but there's a lot more work to do.</s>PHILLIPS: What about short-term benefits?</s>KELLAN: Short-term benefits, I think, we're seeing already. Because this code has been cracked -- has been slowly being cracked, and because of the public -- genome has been available to the public, researchers have taken advantage of it. And you see treatments and medicines and progress, but it is a slow -- its' a slow, steady process. And the fact that they now know where the genes are, that's the good news, because now they don't have to spend years finding them: They can go right to finding cures and treatments for disease. All right, Ann Kellan, thanks a lot.