By Jessa Netting and Linda Wang
Come one, come all. The newly completed sequence of the human genome is now on parade for the whole world to see. Like a display of the storybook emperor’s new clothes, however, our genome’s finery may be as striking for what we don’t see as for what we do.
After the past few months of analysis at breakneck speed, two genome-mapping projects, one public and one private, have each pieced together the genetic fabric revealing the order of all the genes on our chromosomes. The International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium, a collective of several academic and government labs, and its rival in the private sector, Celera Genomics of Rockville, Md.,