France's Sequencers Aim to Join the Big League

Evry, France—As the worldwide effort to sequence the human genome moves into high gear, gene researchers are welcoming the latest member of the team: France's Genoscope, a major gene sequencing center in this industrial suburb just outside Paris. Genoscope, also known as the National Sequencing Center, plans to tackle between 5% and 10% of the human genome, which would put it in the same league as such major players as the Sanger Centre near Cambridge, U.K., Washington University in St. Louis, and The Institute for Genomic Research in Rockville, Maryland. As part of its preparation for this daunting task, the French center—which has been quietly tooling up since last summer—will soon complete its inaugural project: the sequencing of the genome of Pyrococcus abysii, an archaebacterium that lives at high temperatures and whose sequence may help resolve controversies about the nature of early life forms (see sidebar).