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Would Celera have done what they did without HGP doing a lot of preliminary research and creating an environment of strong interest? It seems to me that these
by api 9y ago
Would Celera have done what they did without HGP doing a lot of preliminary research and creating an environment of strong interest?
It seems to me that these kinds of arguments have a "that which is seen vs. that which is unseen" problem. All the preliminary R&D that sets the stage and builds interest gets forgotten after the big "Eureka!" In reality "Eureka!" is a borderline myth. Look at any big invention and you can find that a lot of fertilizer was added to the soil before it sprouted.
- dekhn 9y agoYes, Celera would have done what they did. Remember, they didn't need the preliminary research of the HGP, because instead of using a scaffolding method, they went straight to shotgun sequencing which saved them 5+ years. Nobody's denying that the HGP and Celera were able to rest on a strong foundation, but the reality is that the HGP was running itself lazily because they had no competition. I worked in genomics at the time and it was really a sleepy corner of bioinformatics.