Gene map "essentially complete"

Gene map 'essentially complete'
AP 4/14/03

WASHINGTON (AP) ?- An international consortium of scientists announced Monday that it has completed the map of the human genetic code to an accuracy of 99.99% and said the accomplishment opens a new era for biology and medicine.

The group announced in 2000 that it had completed a rough draft of the code, and the new report said the sequence is now "essentially complete" and freely available on computer databases to scientists all over the world.

Already, the group said, the computer databases carrying the sequences are getting more than 120,000 visits a day.

"After three billion years of evolution, we have before us the instruction set that carries each of us from one cell egg to adulthood to the grave," said Dr. Robert Waterston, of the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium, an organization of 18 institutions that participated in the project.