Walter Bodmer, along with Walter Gilbert, a 1980 Nobel laureate in chemistry and a Harvard University professor, wrote opinions advocating for a project to sequence the human genome in the premier issue of The Scientist magazine, published October 20, 1986.
In The Scientist’s first issue, Walter Bodmer, then Research Director at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund Laboratories in London, and later the second president of the Human Genome Organization, wrote an opinion about the potential of a Human Genome Project (HGP). Now, more than a decade after the first draft genome was published, he reflects on the accuracy of those 1986 predictions.
In 1986, Bodmer predicted: The human genome would allow the characterization of "…10,000 or so basic genetic functions…" In 2011 Bodmer says: "The '10,000 or so basic genetic functions' were not to be equated to genes, but to clusters of genes with related functions, and was not far off the mark. Now, however, we know that multiple splice products and considerable numbers of ...
