Strategy

The files concern the public consortium's reaction to the formation of Celera Genomics, proposals for the public consortium to adopt a new sequencing strategy and negotiations with Celera to form a sequencing partnership.

March 1998-March 2001

4 boxes

In 1998 Craig Venter announced the formation of Celera Genomics, which contributed to the Wellcome Trust's decision to increase Sanger Centre funding allowing it to commit to sequencing a third of the human genome as part of the public Human Genome Project. Some members of the public consortium proposed they change strategy and begin sequencing random clones, rather than dividing the work regionally, in order to compete with Venter. This caused debate within the Project but ultimately the strategy was not adopted. In 1999 the G5, the heads of the five biggest sequencing operations in the public consortium, agreed to accelerate production, releasing unfinished sequence quickly, followed by fully-finished data at a later date. During the winter of 1999 attempts were made by American members of the Human Genome Project to negotiate a partnership with Celera to finish and release the genome sequence. However negotiations broke down over the issues of data release and database control.