President Clinton and the British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, jointly welcomed the mapping of the human genetic code in a satellite link-up. The President at a White House event was flanked by Mr Francis Collins, head of the publicly-funded Human Genome Project, and by Dr Craig Ventner, founder of Celera Genomics, the private company which has greatly boosted research in the area. Mr Clinton helped to persuade the rival projects to co-operate in yesterday's announcement of the completion of the work. "Today we are learning the language in which God created life," the President said. "We are gaining ever more awe for the complexity, the beauty, the wonder of God's most divine and sacred gift."
He compared the mapping of the genetic code to Galileo's astronomical feats and the exploration of the American interior 200 years ago. But he warned that the genetic discoveries must never be used to segregate, discriminate or invade the privacy of human beings.
Dr Ventner pointed out that the Celera project mapped the genetic codes of five people, three women and two men, of different races. But the scientists could not tell one ethnicity from another. "What we've shown is that the concept of race has no scientific basis," he said.
Mr Collins said now "the real work begins". The research possibilities and the effects on medicine were almost limitless. Researchers could concentrate on finding disease-causing genes and developing therapies that treat disorders at the fundamental molecular level.
But a CNN poll showed that the American public is wary of genetic research. Some 46 per cent believe the research is "harmful" and 40 per cent said it was "beneficial."
There are also fears that the genetic information already available can be used by insurance companies and employers to discriminate against people on medical grounds. Mr Clinton has made an executive order banning genetic discrimination against government employees.
A number of bills to protect non-government workers are making their way through Congress. Over 30 states have laws preventing insurance companies from discriminating on the basis of genetic pre-disposition. Mr Blair said: "Let us be in no doubt about what we are witnessing today. A revolution in medical science whose implications far surpass even the discovery of antibiotics."
Mr Blair paid a warm tribute to scientists in London and Washington.
Hailing the breakthrough, which has been described as the biological equivalent of man landing on the Moon, Mr Blair said the project opened the way for huge advances in the treatment of cancer and hereditary diseases.
At a London press conference, Dr Michael Dexter, director of the Wellcome Trust, the medical charity which funded the British leg of the project, described mapping the human genetic code as "the outstanding achievement, not only of our lifetime, but in terms of human history".
Dr John Sulston, director of the Sanger Centre in Cambridge, where the UK genome work was carried out, said no one should underestimate the importance of the event in human history: "Over the decades and centuries to come this sequence will inform all of medicine, all of biology, and will lead us to a total understanding of not only human beings, but all of life."
Trinity College Dublin is to mark the work of Dr Sulston, who will receive an honorary doctorate on July 7th. A seminar outlining the research and its implications will be held at the college on that date with presentations by Dr Sulston and Dr Michael Morgan, of the Wellcome Trust, a TCD graduate.
The national agency for commercialising biotechnology, BioResearch Ireland (BRI), welcomed Human Genome Project breakthrough. It said the announcement marked a major step forward in a process in which Ireland would increasingly play a role.
BRI director, Dr Jim Ryan, said Irish companies would apply the information made available by the HGP to the solution of healthcare problems, and to benefiting the economy.