Human Genome Draft Announced at the White House, June 26, 2000

The first draft of the human genome was announced at the White House on June 26, 2000. President Bill Clinton stood in the East Room with Francis Collins, head of the publicly funded Human Genome Project, and J. Craig Venter of the private company Celera Genomics, while British Prime Minister Tony Blair joined by satellite from London. Together they presented a working draft of the genetic instructions carried in nearly every human cell.

What Was Announced on June 26, 2000

The ceremony began at 10:19 a.m. Eastern time. Collins described the result as “the first draft of the human book of life.” He reported that the international public consortium had sequenced 85 percent of the genome and that its map of overlapping DNA fragments covered 97 percent.

Clinton framed the moment in sweeping terms: “Today, we are learning the language in which God created life.” The draft was not a finished book. It contained many gaps and errors, and the formal scientific papers describing it did not appear until February 2001, when the public project published in Nature and Celera published in Science.

The joint appearance mattered as much as the data. For two years, the public project and Celera had been running separate efforts, and the event presented them as partners finishing at the same moment.

The Human Genome Project Before 2000

The Human Genome Project launched in October 1990. Its goal was to read the full sequence of human DNA, the long chain of chemical letters that encodes genes and the regions that control them. The work was shared among 20 universities and research centers in six countries: the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Japan and China.

The public project made a decision that shaped all of genomics. At meetings in Bermuda in 1996, its scientists agreed to the Bermuda Principles, which called for rapid public release of sequence data. In practice, the consortium posted new sequence data daily, so researchers anywhere could use it without waiting for the project to end.

The Race With Celera Genomics

In 1998, Craig Venter launched Celera Genomics as a privately funded effort to sequence the genome faster. Celera’s budget was about $300 million, compared with roughly $3 billion projected for the public project.

The competition raised questions about ownership. Celera initially said it would seek patents on only 200 to 300 genes, then filed preliminary applications on about 6,500 whole or partial genes. It promised to release data, but not on terms that allowed free redistribution. In March 2000, Clinton and Blair issued a joint call for researchers to have unencumbered access to the raw sequence.

The June ceremony put the rivalry aside in public. Venter and Collins shared the stage, and the announcement credited both groups.

Timeline: From Launch to a Complete Genome

• October 1990: The Human Genome Project begins.
• 1996: The Bermuda Principles set rules for rapid data release.
• 1998: Celera Genomics launches its private effort.
• June 26, 2000: The working draft is announced at the White House.
• February 2001: Draft papers are published in Nature and Science.
• April 2003: The project announces an essentially complete sequence covering about 92 percent of the genome.
• March 31, 2022: The Telomere-to-Telomere consortium releases the first truly complete human genome sequence.
• August 2023: A complete sequence of the Y chromosome is published.

The project finished in April 2003, two years earlier than planned. That version still had fewer than 400 gaps, and the 2000 draft had contained more than 150,000. Closing the last gaps took almost another two decades. The 2000 calendar and 2003 calendar show the gap between the draft and the finished reference.

How Complete Was the 2000 Draft?

Coverage figures for the draft differ depending on what is being measured, so it helps to compare them side by side. The numbers below come from the National Human Genome Research Institute and from published accounts of the project.

Version	Date	Coverage and gaps
Working draft announced	June 2000	85% sequenced and 97% mapped (Collins); about 90% with more than 150,000 gaps (NHGRI fact sheet)
Draft papers published	February 2001	About 83% of the genome
Essentially complete sequence	April 2003	About 92%, fewer than 400 gaps
Telomere-to-Telomere sequence	2022	First truly complete sequence; Y chromosome finished in 2023

The main lesson for anyone citing a date: “the human genome was sequenced in 2000” refers to the draft, while 2003 marks the official end of the Human Genome Project and 2022 marks the first sequence with no gaps.

What the Human Genome Draft Changed

The draft gave scientists a shared reference sequence, freely available because of the public project’s data rules, against which they could compare the DNA of patients and study genes linked to disease.

It also changed expectations about the number of human genes. Early in the project, estimates ran from 80,000 to 140,000 genes. Analysis of the draft and later versions brought the count of protein-coding genes down to about 20,000, far fewer than many scientists had expected.

The project’s cost is usually given as about $2.7 billion, below the $3 billion originally projected, although the National Human Genome Research Institute notes that precise accounting is difficult.

If you want to see how many years separate the June 2000 announcement from today, or from the 2022 completion, the days between dates calculator gives an exact count.