Controversy Over Funding

The human genome project has recently been the focus of controversy among microbiologists because of funding changes it may have caused in the field of genetic experimentation.

Some point out that the amount of money now being spent on sequencing all human genes might be more productively spent on researching genes for specific diseases.

Lewis M. Kunkel, professor of genetics in the Medical School's Department of Pediatrics, says he does not approve of the shift in funding priorities.

"This project is directing funds away from disease-oriented research," Kunkel says.

Kunkel's lab cloned the Duschene gene which has been linked to muscular dystrophy, a genetic disease which causes muscles to waste away.

"I don't for the fun of it clone big blocks of DNA. I look for and try to understand specific regions that cause disease," Kunkel says. "I'm targeting a particular part of the genome that might be therapeutically treated in certain individuals."

But Church insists that the proposal has not changed funding policies or wasted money.

"The fact is, we were already spending similar amounts of money on similar activities before the project started," he says.

Scientists should not simply concentrate on sequencing genes for specific diseases, though such findings may seem to give immediate utility to the project, Church says.

"If unknown DNA is mixed in finely with gems, you don't avoid the gems because you don't want the junk," he says.

"Instead you make it cost effective to sequence everything."

Gilbert says that the project grew out of the accumulation of specific sequenced disease genes.

"Scientists know they are going to want all of the genetic sequences sooner or later, so why not do it all at once?" Gilbert says.

The project is a simpler and more efficient way to map genes than concentrating exclusively on specific disease genes, he says.