Scientists said on Monday they had printed out the ``book of life'' -- the complete human genetic sequence -- and were now settling down to read it.
Public and private researchers announced they had finished sequencing the genetic code and had virtually finished assembling it into the right order in the first step of a process they say will transform medicine and could eventually mean the eradication of some diseases.
It is only the first step in a decades-long process that they say will allow doctors to tailor drugs for each individual and to predict who is at risk of certain diseases.
``Today we celebrate the revelation of the first draft of the human book of life,'' Dr. Francis Collins, head of the US National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), which headed the public effort, told a White House ceremony.
``Without a doubt, this is the most important and most wondrous map ever produced by humankind,'' US President Clinton told the ceremony.
Celera Genomics Inc., a Rockville, Maryland-based company founded with the specific purpose of being the first to map the human genome, said it had finished the sequence and assembled the genetic code.
The Human Genome Project, a collegial and publicly funded international effort that has been working toward the same goal for 10 years, said it had finished a rough draft of the genome sequence and completed 85 percent of the assembly.
The two sides had been negotiating on how best to make the information public and it was not clear that they would be able to reach an agreement. The Human Genome Project has been publishing the information on the Internet as it progresses, while Celera wants to protect some corporate rights to the information.
But Clinton said an agreement had been reached for joint publication.
``Public and private research teams are committed to publishing their genomic data simultaneously later this year, for the benefit of researchers in every corner of the globe,'' he said.
All the researchers involved stressed that the sequencing was only a very early beginning.
``There's a lot of work yet to be done ... We need to finish this job. We should not be satisfied with a book of life that has gaps and errors in it,'' Collins said.
``Having the genetic code is actually not a very important moment other than it is the beginning of what we can do with it,'' Craig Venter, president and chief scientific officer of Celera, told a news briefing after the announcement.
What the two teams have is a long read-out of A's, T's, C's and G's -- the molecules, or nucleotides, that make up the rungs of the DNA ladder.
``It wouldn't fit on a CD-ROM,'' Collins said. ``It would fit on a DVD (digital video disk).'' If printed out on sheets of standard, letter-sized paper stacked one on top of another, Collins said, the stack would reach as high as the Washington Monument, 555 feet (170 meters) tall.
``It would take you 100 years to read your own genetic code but I suspect you would fall asleep far earlier,'' Venter said.
Collins said 90 percent of all known genes had already been found in the sequence that had been done, and 95 percent of known disease-causing genes.
It is useful to compare the already-known genes because these can be used as a template for finding other genes.
But most of the sequence is unknown territory -- like a satellite photograph that needs the roads, cities and other landmarks filled in before it can be turned into a proper map.
Collins said scientists still do not know how many genes there are, but about 38,000 had been identified. ``All those in the betting pool (who predicted) under 38,000 may have to give up their $1 bets,'' he said.
``We need to uncover the genes that are involved in every common disease,'' Collins said.
Venter thinks the potential is enormous. ``As a consequence of the genome efforts that you've heard described by Dr. Collins and myself this morning and the research that will be catalyzed by this information, there is at least the potential to reduce the number of cancer deaths to zero during our lifetimes,'' he said.
``There will be discoveries made across the board, but it's impossible to predict which diseases, at this point, will see the breakthroughs first.''