a story lives forever
Register
Sign in
Form submission failed!

Stay signed in

Recover your password?
Register
Form submission failed!

Web of Stories Ltd would like to keep you informed about our products and services.

Please tick here if you would like us to keep you informed about our products and services.

I have read and accepted the Terms & Conditions.

Please note: Your email and any private information provided at registration will not be passed on to other individuals or organisations without your specific approval.

Video URL

You must be registered to use this feature. Sign in or register.

NEXT STORY

Hard-earned success

RELATED STORIES

DNA sequencing
Renato Dulbecco Scientist
Comments (0) Please sign in or register to add comments

[Q] And, however, the entire problem... I don't know if you want to mention it, but it seems to me that the whole problem of genome sequencing is what came first, what came afterwards. I saw, that there was an article in 'Nature' recently, where it said that Celera is now putting...

Yes, about the genome... sequencing was presented by two groups, the first a public group, and the other a private group of the company Celera and, in fact, Celera was able to do this because there was the private group, because Celera... the means that it used was to randomly cut the genome, not in recognisable points, but... and then to put together these pieces with the others in such a way as to obtain the sequence. But, to be able to put them together, they needed something, a greater point of reference where these various pieces could be overlapped and the group produced this using bacteria... bacterial genomes, which are very large and therefore can accommodate surfaces, very large pieces of the genome. Without which they wouldn't have succeeded but, therefore, after all, combining the two technologies they progressed rapidly, which is also a good thing. Therefore, the public group... naturally the results were always available in the data banks, however the Celera group made some data available to the public and then others it sold, you had to buy it.

[Q] Well, Craig Venter is a man that...

No, and then the fact is that increasingly more researchers realised that the public group's data was sufficient and there was no need... so now Celera abandoned... made all its data available in the public banks because basically, it would be...

[Q] And Celera is now dedicated to the production of medicines.

How's that? Yes, now they try, yes.

[Q] E, invece, tutto il problema... io non lo so se lo vuoi accennare, ma mi sembra tutto il problema del sequenziamento del genoma chi è arrivato prima, chi è arrivato dopo. Io ho visto cosa c'era una notizia, forse, su 'Nature' di recente, dove dice che adesso severamente, ecco...

Sì, questo del genoma... il sequenziamento è stato portato avanti da due gruppi, uno un gruppo pubblico e l'altro un gruppo privato della compagnia Celera e infatti la Celera ha potuto farlo perché c'era il gruppo privato, perché la Celera... il mezzo che ha usato era di tagliare a caso il genoma, non in punti riconoscibili, ma... e poi per mettere insieme questi pezzi con gli altri in modo da ottenere la sequenza. Ma, per poterli mettere insieme, avevano bisogno di qualche cosa, di un punto di riferimento più grande dove potesse sovrapporre questi vari pezzi e questo l'ha prodotto il gruppo privato usando dei batteri- dei genomi batterici, che sono molto grandi e perciò possono accomodare delle superfici, dei pezzi molto grandi del genoma. Senza di quello non sarebbero riusciti ma, però, in fondo, combinando le due tecnologie sono andati avanti rapidamente, che insomma, anche quella è una buona cosa. Dunque, il gruppo pubblico... naturalmente i risultati erano sempre a disposizione nelle banche dati, invece il gruppo Celera ha cominciato a alcuni dati li ha messi a pubblica disposizione e poi gli altri li vendeva, bisognava comprarli.

[Q] Beh, Craig Venter è un uomo che...

No, e poi il fatto è che sempre più ricercatori si sono accorti che i dati del gruppo pubblico erano sufficienti e non c'era bisogno... per cui adesso Celera ha abbandonato... ha messo tutti i suoi dati a disposizione nelle banche pubbliche, perché in fondo sarebbe...

[Q] E si dedica alla produzione di farmaci, dice, adesso Celera...

Come? Sì, adesso cercano si.

The Italian biologist Renato Dulbecco (1914-2012) had early success isolating a mutant of the polio virus which was used to create a life-saving vaccine. Later in his career, he initiated the Human Genome Project and was jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1975 for furthering our understanding of cancer caused by viruses.

Listeners: Paola De Paoli Marchetti

Paola De Paoli Marchetti is a science journalist who graduated with an honours degree in foreign languages and literature from the University Ca’Foscari, Venice. She has been a science journalist since the 1960s and has been on the staff of the newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore since 1970. She was elected president of UGIS (Italian Association of Science Journalists) in 1984. She has been a Member of the Board of EUSJA (European Union of Science Journalists’ Associations, Strasbourg), and was its president in 1987-1988 and 1998-2000. In May 2000 she was unanimously elected president emeritus. She was a member of the National Council of Italian Journalists (1992-1998). From 2002 to 2004 she was member of the working group for scientific communication of the National Committee for Biotechnology. She has also been a consultant at the Italian Ministry of Research and Technology and editor-in-chief of the publication MRST, policy of science and technology. She has co-authored many publications in the field of scientific information, including Le biotecnologie in Italia, Le piste della ricerca and Luna vent’anni dopo.

Tags: Celera, Craig Venter

Duration: 2 minutes, 24 seconds

Date story recorded: May 2005

Date story went live: 24 January 2008