Letting the genie

So that is a single human being: a pile of papers as high as the sky covered in combinations of A, T, G and C - the four chemicals that make up our DNA blueprint.

But humans are not quite as simple as A-T-G-C. Humans also have to cope with the consequences of their chemical make-up.

For instance, you are a bank manager. The applicant before you is a 30-year-old man. He's on the brink of marriage, of raising a family, of fulfilling all his hopes and dreams. He wants to buy the perfect home for his wife and family - but do you, the bank manager, give him a 25-year mortgage if you know that he carries the gene that causes Huntington's Chorea. It is a degenerative disease that sets in during middle age and makes it unlikely that the applicant will ever be able to complete his repayments.

Or you are the man's bride. Do you go ahead with the marriage in the knowledge that before your children are grown, you'll be caring for your husband?

Or you are the man's mother. A pre-natal scan shows that he carries this gene. What do you do? Have his genes altered? Abort him?

It's not just Huntington's Chorea. There are 4,000 diseases and disorders which are linked to genes. These include muscular distrophy, cystic fibrosis, haemophilia and diabetes. Combinations of genetic disorders also cause the big killers - cancer and heart disease.

Author and broadcaster Dr Tom Shakespeare, from the Policy, Ethics and Life Sciences Research Institute in Newcastle says: ''It is dangerous to think information is always beneficial. Ignorance may be bliss. Will people want to know about genetic susceptibility to disease, especially when it is incurable? Only 12 per cent of people at risk of Huntington's want to find out their status.

''Who has the right to know about our genetic make-up? Will employers, insurers, or the state use this knowledge to discriminate against people unfairly? Will our genetic privacy be protected?"

The bio-technology, though, goes far further than just correcting disorders. Very soon we could know the genetic make-up that disposes some people to be more intelligent or stronger than others. We will then be able to design a super-race of tall, strong blonds - and that presents worrying questions for the lives of those of us who are short, dim and not particularly attractive.

And yet the human genome offers so much potential for good. In the future, a comprehensive gene scan could be carried out at birth. From it, doctors will learn exactly which disorders a person is destined to suffer from. They will then be able to tailor a programme of lifelong treatment to protect that person from cancers, heart disease, Huntington's...

Now that all the human genes have been identified, the race is on to work out what they do. Some are already understood. Huntington's, for example, has been known for a decade to be caused by a defective gene on chromosome number four. The race is now on to find a treatment for it.

Scientists have already identified that a gene called p53 is damaged in many cancerous cells. It is the gene that stops tumours spreading. The race is now on to either repair p53 or find a virus which kills all cells that don't have a p53.

This race is among pharmaceutical companies. If one of them could produce a drug that solved the p53 problem, it could be staring at untold wealth. However, as there are 200 different types of cancer, there are anything up to 1,000 genes to be investigated.

But, also, this is a race to the patent office. One American company has already patented gene ccr5. It will probably turn out to be the gene that allows Aids to enter the human body. The only way anyone will know is by buying rights to that gene from the patent-holder and conducting experiments.

This is how gene entrepreneur Dr Craig Venter tried to profit. He set up his Celera firm in America in 1998 to identify genes, patent them and sell the information to drugs companies.

Dr Venter came to symbolise all that was wrong with the commercial side of the gene business. There were stories of gene prospectors panning around amongst isolated tribes in the hope of discovering a valuable gene that the gene-pool of western world has lost. The whole of Iceland, an insular society, has put its medical records up for sale for $200m for gene entrepreneurs to exploit.

Dr Venter is a millionaire with a yacht, a chunky Rolex and a Learjet - all the capitalist trappings of a successful businessman rather than a scientist - but he has driven forward the search for the human genome.

Because until his intervention, an international consortium of scientists called the Human Genome Project, funded by governments and charities, was slowly plugging away at the puzzle. Led by Britain's Dr John Sulton, it has thoroughly investigated the human blueprint and, true to Dr Sulton's socialist principles, it had published its discoveries on the internet for all to use without payment.

The two approaches didn't seem compatible and there was a great deal of rancour between the maverick entrepreneur and the solid scientists. But yesterday, the two sides announced they had come to an agreement which allowed them to produce their joint first draft of the blueprint.

It was three years ahead of schedule - largely because of Dr Venter's commercial pressures. But he joined the Human Genome Project because to patent a gene, he must first demonstrate its function. Although he has been able to raise £1m in a single day on the US stock market, he needs even greater resources to succeed - the Human Genome Project has spent £1.8bn worldwide so far and, with the backing of the US government, it clearly has deeper pockets than any private individual.

So, for the moment, the non-profit-makers appear to have won the day. But this is unlikely to continue. In fact, drugs companies are investing so much in gene research they will expect some pay-back.

And then will come even more moral dilemmas, as if designer babies and casual abortions weren't enough to contend with. If an Aids drug is found, will the impoverished people of Africa - where one in four has Aids - be given it, or only the rich white people?

How will our National Health Service cope? It is already creaking under the cost of supplying drugs to 8,000 multiple sclerosis sufferers. Now an even more expensive treatment for cancer is likely, and one in three of the 55 million Britons will develop cancer during their lives and one in five will die from it. The potential cost to the NHS is enormous.

Or will only rich people be able to buy their escape from cancer? Will only rich people be able to buy the gene-technology that slows down the ageing process so that humans can live disease-free and with perfect skin to over 100?

Scientists believe that will is as easy as A-T-G-C. But humans are more than merely chemicals. Moral decisions about C-A-S-H are far harder.