Nobel-Winning Chemist Defends His Genetic Mapping Idea

Walter Gilbert, a Nobel Prize-winning biochemist and outspoken advocate of a broad-based effort to build a blueprint of all human genes, on Wednesday defended the scheme and his own plans to operate a firm that would copyright and sell genetic information.

Speaking at a conference in San Diego on emerging techniques for exploring genetic questions, Gilbert argued that within 15 years it will be possible to map the entire human genetic structure and that private industry is well-suited to disseminating the results.

“The view that, to be broadly useful, the information has to be in the public domain is absolutely wrong,” Gilbert told the audience at the San Diego Hilton. “ . . . The thing that makes it useful to you is if you can get an easy answer at a price you can afford to pay.”

Both the so-called Human Genome Initiative--the idea of mapping the 3 billion chemicals that comprise the human genetic structure--and Gilbert’s plan to copyright and sell his firm’s findings have been criticized by some colleagues in Gilbert’s field.

They have suggested that the project would be a waste of money and would drain resources from less sensational-sounding research. Others have questioned whether private firms would restrict the flow of information, necessitating duplicative research.

A member of the audience at the conference Wednesday sponsored by the American Assn. for Clinical Chemistry implied in a question to Gilbert that the gene-cataloguing project is aimed in part at “building a better . . . human.”

“The purpose of our knowledge of human genetics is not to build better human beings by design,” responded Gilbert. “It’s much more to one, understand human beings, and two, ameliorate the human condition in the medical sense.”

Supporters of the gene-mapping project, which is under consideration by federal officials, say the information to be gained about the structure and function of genes would improve understanding of the estimated 3,500 diseases tied to genetic causes.

Those diseases include cancer, diabetes and heart disease.

Gilbert, a professor at Harvard University, told reporters after delivering his keynote address that he is raising as much as $10 million in venture capital to begin operating his firm, Genome Corp.