Mapping and Sequencing the Human Genome

IN a 1986 editorial, Renato Dulbecco1 proposed that the best way to speed solution of the fundamental problems of cancer was to sequence the human genome completely — that is, to determine the sequence of nucleotides in each chromosome. (Remarkably, Dulbecco did not mention gene mapping, the process of locating the position of genes on chromosomes.) Large-scale sequencing had been under discussion for some time; indeed, a conference called by the Department of Energy at Los Alamos, New Mexico, to discuss the subject was held the week that Dulbecco's editorial appeared. But perhaps more than any other single factor, the . . .