Sir

Current hype about the expected completion of the Human Genome Project demands some clarification of the details as well as of the wider scientific implications. Although initially conceptualized more broadly, the project is effectively about determining the sequence of bases in the human genome. This is not the same as trying to understand the program that is encoded in human DNA, an obvious requirement for any pharmacological application. Consequently, the results will be in the merely descriptive naturalistic tradition (along the lines of ‘the mean content of bases G and C of sequence so-and-so is 47.8 per cent’). Technical development has always had that effect on scientific disciplines, for example the electron microscope, the radio telescope or the automated DNA sequencer.

Of course, researchers are always quick to emphasize the importance of their work to whatever application is in vogue, and curing diseases is a worthy goal. But how specifically will the Human Genome Project help to achieve this end? A look at any gene (as opposed to a sequence) map from any species reveals what looks like an explosion in a slaughterhouse. Where is the order we need, to make sensible rather than trial-and-error genetic manipulations?

Should scientists' claims of applicability for their results be acknowledged as a mechanism to secure funding rather than having any realistic basis? ‘Science is a process and not a series of final states’ is the somewhat trite argument to justify goals not achieved. A series of simple descriptive, but highly technical, publications ensures that research money will be channelled into well-trodden paths in the future.

In any case, pharmacogenomics requires an understanding of the apparent genetic ‘disorder’ in any organism's genome, of genotype– phenotype mapping, of gene– gene interactions (epistasis), of intraspecific genetic variability, and of self-organizational processes, rather than endless lists of DNA bases.