Genome scientists interviewed for this article say it will be difficult for the National Institutes of Health, via its search committee, to find someone with the same drive, vision, and scientific stature--which, they generally agree, translates into an ongoing ability to obtain high-priority funding from Congress.
Preceding the resignation was well-publicized friction between the Nobel Prize-winning Watson--noted both for his achievement in identifying the double helix structure of DNA and for his outspokenness--and NIH director Bernadine Healy.
Recently Watson lashed out at Healy over her support of NIH's pursuit of patents on partial DNA sequences, known as expressed sequence tags. Watson and many other genome scientists feel these patent applications will inhibit international collaborations and could stimulate a gene patent race (The Scientist, April 27, 1992, page 1).
Watson, who was not available for comment at press time, said in an April 10 statement that he feels the ambitious genome ...
