"We have set up a production line, which is a sequence center that makes the process simpler so it can be done on a large fast scale," Gilbert says.

According to Church, chromosomes cannot be analyzed under a microscope or in any simple chemical fashion, but only through the use of specific genetic and biochemical techniques.

Scientists begin to map and sequence genes by amplifying a subset of a particular chromosome, Church says. They then use biochemical methods to divide the subset into smaller fragments, he says.

Technicians map the genes using specific genetic markers such as DNA polymorphisms, which are hereditary traits that have more than one form in humans. They also sequence the amplified DNA by converting it into chemical information specifying the nucleotide bases in the molecule.

Church says that the goals of the genome project are realizable due to great advances in technology.

"The genome project grew out of the realization that there was new technology that could be applied to human disease in different ways than science was able to apply it before," Church says.

Molecular biology procedures have been scaled up and a number of breakthroughs have facilitated the work of all genetic researchers, he says.

"These developments have brought down the cost of the project for the whole community," Church says.

Church's lab focuses on DNA sequencing and automation, using computer analysis of the sequences, he says.

The scientist sequences the genomes of a number of different organisms for the sake of developing new technologies.

"My personal ambitions are to help produce technology to sequence faster and more accurately," he says.

Gilbert and Church say that genetic sequencing will have profound implications for all of science.

"DNA sequencing is not an end, but a means, for so many fields," Church says. "This is an underlying enabling technique and relatively few modern technologies affect so many fields."

Gilbert says the project is part of a movement in science towards an increasingly genetic view of many different biological phenomena--a view which has come under fire in the past from many scientists who do not wish to deemphasize the role environment plays in hereditary determination.

Another by-product of the the project, says Church, is that its wide-reaching nature has mobilized people from many different fields.