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An international consortium of six nations Monday announced the successful completion of the human genome sequencing, an achievement hailed as a scientific landmark comparable to splitting the atom or landing on the moon.
Launched in 1990, the public-funded Human Genome Project aims to determine the exact order of the approximately 3 billion DNA letters in the human genome which contains the instruction of human life.
The project was scheduled to be completed by the end of 2005 with a budget of US$3 billion. However, thanks to hundreds of researchers around the globe, it was finished more than two years ahead of time at a cost of US$2.7 billion, significantly less than the original estimates.
"All of the project's goals have been completed successfully," Francis Collins, director of the US National Human Genome Research Institute which led the international project, told a news conference held in Washington on Monday.
The completed genome map is "a remarkable gift for all mankind", said Collins.
According to researchers involved in the project, the finished sequence covers about 99 percent of the human genome's gene- containing regions, and it has been sequenced to an accuracy of 99. 99 percent.
By successful sequencing the human genome, scientists now have "opened the door into a vast and complex new biological landscape" and created a revolution which is "transforming biological science far beyond what we could imagine," Aristides Patrinos from the US Department of Energy, which also supported the US sequencing effort, said in a statement.
Leaders of the six countries behind the Human Genome Project -- China, Japan, France, Germany, Britain and the United States -- also hailed the work.
"This genetic sequence provides us with the fundamental platform for understanding ourselves, from which revolutionary progress will be made in biomedical sciences and in the health and welfare of humankind," the leaders said in a joint statement.
"Their outstanding work will be noted in the history of science and technology, and as well in the history of humankind, as a landmark achievement."
The statement was signed by Wen Jiabao, Premier of China; US President George W. Bush; French President Jacques Chirac; British Prime Minister Tony Blair; German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi.
(Xinhua News Agency April 15, 2003)
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