Human Genome Announcement Expected Monday

WASHINGTON —  Celera Genomics and the publicly funded Human Genome Project said Friday that they had finished making arrangements for a joint announcement on mapping the human genome.

The two groups, which have sped to make a rough draft of the human DNA map, said they would make a joint announcement Monday in Washington. The U.S. Department of Energy, which has labs also involved in the public project, said it would join in the announcement.

“We are going to be putting something together,” said an official associated with the Human Genome Project, an international effort teaming academic and government researchers. “They [Celera] are going to announce their first assembly. We are going to announce our working draft.”

The timing and logistics of the announcement have been the subject of intense negotiations involving Celera, a Rockville, Md.-based company, the Human Genome Project and the White House.

The two sides have been at times competitive and at times acrimonious, and have dickered over whether to join forces in doing the work and publishing the results.

President Clinton, speaking in anticipation of the announcement, said, “the whole landscape of health care” will be changed forever by decoding the human genetic pattern.