Gilbert Genome Center To Close

As a result of a loss of government funding, one of Harvard's major biology laboratories will be shutting down this summer, forcing more than a dozen scientists and technicians to bunt for jobs elsewhere.

Loeb University Professor Walter Gilbert was unable to renew a $2 million a year grant for funding of Harvard's Genome Laboratory, a major center for the $3 billion national Human Genome Project.

In 1990, Gilbert was awarded a three year contract from the National Institutes of Health to develop a new technology for sequencing DNA. Without a renewal, the contract will expire this July.

Gilbert said he was "disappointed" when he heard last month that his grant to support his portion of the Genome Project would not be renewed.

"This is something that happens," said Gilbert, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1980 for his work on a novel DNA sequencing technique. "It shuts off my research activities in the Human Genome Project."

Human DNA consists of a string of molecules called nucleotides, sequences of which code for the proteins essential for life. The Human Genome Project is a $3 billion national endeavor to map the location of every human gene.

"We had a [15-year] goal to ultimately work out all the genes by about 2004," said Gilbert, who chairs the biology department.

According to Patrick M. Gillevet, director and chief scientist of the Harvard Genome Laboratory, Gilbert's project was to develop a direct sequencing method, using bacteria as models.

"It's a genomic walking strategy," he said. "We take the whole genome of this bacteria and walk along it, and actually sequence it directly."

Gilbert will not be the only one affected by the loss. A total of 15 scientists work in the genome laboratory, including four computer lab technicians, eight bench technicians and three professional scientists. Because the lab is closing, many of them have been forced to find new employment.

"It was panicked there for a while, but things have calmed down a bit, now that people have found jobs," Gillevet said.

Gillevet said he will move elsewhere to continue the project. "I think [the technicians] feel a little bit better that I'm bringing the project with me, so the technology will be continued," he said.

Gilbert and Gillevet both denied that the loss of funding was a result of spending cuts in the Clinton administration. "There's no policy shift in the government," Gilbert said.

Instead, Gilbert said, the National Institutes of Health simply did not give his project a high enough priority.

"A group of external scientists come and examine the project and report to a review group in the government," Gilbert said. "They ask whether this should be funded and with what priority it should be funded."

Gillevet said a possible factor in the Institutes' decision may have been that the developmental phase of the project took longer than expected.

"There is an issue that it took us longer to scale up than we thought, so we didn't produce as much in a three year period as we though we would," he said.

According to Gillevet, the lab's initial goal was to sequence one million basepairs, but only about 180,000 have been sequenced so far. Current work, Gillevet said, is proceeding at a rate of 300,00 to 400,000 a year.

Gillevet said the average grant from the National Institutes of Health is about $200,000 for ten people, making Harvard's $2 million grant relatively large. But he added that total funding for the entire Human Genome Project is about $200 million a year, so Harvard was responsible for less than one percent of the total project.

Gilbert said he did not know which universities received the half dozen large grants for the genome project this year.

Cabot Professor of the Natural Sciences Matthew S. Meselson, also a biochemist, said he was surprised by the news.

"He does awfully good work," Meselson said. "If this means he will do less work, then there will be less good work done in science."

Nevertheless, Meselson said the closing would have "very little effect on Harvard's science departments, citing the wealth of research projects performed on campus.

Gilbert said he still remains a major proponent of the Human Genome Project despite the loss of funding. "The project as a whole is doing well," he said.

Now that the grant has expired, Gilbert said he will concentrate his attention on the work from his other lap, which studies the cell development of zebrafish, a common species of inquiry for many biologists

Human DNA consists of a string of molecules called nucleotides, sequences of which code for the proteins essential for life. The Human Genome Project is a $3 billion national endeavor to map the location of every human gene.

"We had a [15-year] goal to ultimately work out all the genes by about 2004," said Gilbert, who chairs the biology department.

According to Patrick M. Gillevet, director and chief scientist of the Harvard Genome Laboratory, Gilbert's project was to develop a direct sequencing method, using bacteria as models.

"It's a genomic walking strategy," he said. "We take the whole genome of this bacteria and walk along it, and actually sequence it directly."

Gilbert will not be the only one affected by the loss. A total of 15 scientists work in the genome laboratory, including four computer lab technicians, eight bench technicians and three professional scientists. Because the lab is closing, many of them have been forced to find new employment.

"It was panicked there for a while, but things have calmed down a bit, now that people have found jobs," Gillevet said.

Gillevet said he will move elsewhere to continue the project. "I think [the technicians] feel a little bit better that I'm bringing the project with me, so the technology will be continued," he said.

Gilbert and Gillevet both denied that the loss of funding was a result of spending cuts in the Clinton administration. "There's no policy shift in the government," Gilbert said.

Instead, Gilbert said, the National Institutes of Health simply did not give his project a high enough priority.

"A group of external scientists come and examine the project and report to a review group in the government," Gilbert said. "They ask whether this should be funded and with what priority it should be funded."

Gillevet said a possible factor in the Institutes' decision may have been that the developmental phase of the project took longer than expected.

"There is an issue that it took us longer to scale up than we thought, so we didn't produce as much in a three year period as we though we would," he said.

According to Gillevet, the lab's initial goal was to sequence one million basepairs, but only about 180,000 have been sequenced so far. Current work, Gillevet said, is proceeding at a rate of 300,00 to 400,000 a year.

Gillevet said the average grant from the National Institutes of Health is about $200,000 for ten people, making Harvard's $2 million grant relatively large. But he added that total funding for the entire Human Genome Project is about $200 million a year, so Harvard was responsible for less than one percent of the total project.

Gilbert said he did not know which universities received the half dozen large grants for the genome project this year.

Cabot Professor of the Natural Sciences Matthew S. Meselson, also a biochemist, said he was surprised by the news.

"He does awfully good work," Meselson said. "If this means he will do less work, then there will be less good work done in science."

Nevertheless, Meselson said the closing would have "very little effect on Harvard's science departments, citing the wealth of research projects performed on campus.

Gilbert said he still remains a major proponent of the Human Genome Project despite the loss of funding. "The project as a whole is doing well," he said.

Now that the grant has expired, Gilbert said he will concentrate his attention on the work from his other lap, which studies the cell development of zebrafish, a common species of inquiry for many biologists