Scientists at Celera Genomics and Berkeley Drosophila Genome Project Publish Drosophila Genome; Whole Genome Shotgun Method Successful.

Business Editors, Medical/Biotechnology Writers

ROCKVILLE, Md.--(BW HealthWire)--March 23, 2000

Celera Genomics (NYSE:CRA), a PE Corporation business, today announced that its scientists, in collaboration with researchers at the Berkeley Drosophila Genome Project (BDGP) and Baylor University, have published the assembled and annotated genome of the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster. The company has estimated that the sequences containing the fruit fly's genetic information have an accuracy of greater than 99.99 percent. The genome is now available free of charge to researchers around the world via Celera and GenBank, the public database.

The information was published in the March 24 edition of Science in papers by Celera principal authors Mark D. Adams, Ph.D., vice president, genome programs, Eugene Myers, Ph.D., vice president, informatics research, and J. Craig Venter, Ph.D., president and chief scientific officer, and Gerald Rubin, Ph.D. and Suzanna Lewis, Ph.D. from BDGP. The papers outline the sequencing, assembly, and analysis of the fruit fly genome, the first insect and the largest organism…