What Does the Mapping of the Human Genome Mean for Medicine?
Aired February 11, 2001 – 4:03 p.m. ET THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED. BRIAN NELSON, CNN ANCHOR: CNN’s Christy Feig has spoken with Dr. Francis Collins for her report. He is the head of the Public Human Genome Project. He joins us now from Washington. Thanks for being with us, Dr. Collins. DR. FRANCIS COLLINS, NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH: Delighted. NELSON: The first question is has this taken as long as five years or has it been longer than that to arrive at the revelations we are now going to hear about this week? COLLINS: These revelations arrive almost five years early from the original predictions of not having this information until 2005, and here we are. We have the first draft of our own book of life, and we’ve read it from cover to cover and we’ve discovered some pretty amazing surprises. NELSON: Tell me about the surprises. What was my next question: What has surprised you in this? COLLINS: Well, one is the number of gen
