Responsible scientists should temper the public's hope that knowing the human genetic code will lead to quick cures for diseases, says the man who spearheaded the private effort to map the human genome. "A lot of people have been very irresponsible, promising that every disease would be cured in 10 years," said Craig Venter, head of Celera Genomics, a private U.S. company that mapped the human genome along with publicly funded groups.

"If we could do that in the next 100 years it would be miraculous. All we know for certain is that the discoveries will come in orders of magnitude faster than they would have without having this information."

Gene sequencing means scientists assemble the genes in their proper order, a painstaking process that will enable them to discover abnormalities that cause genetic diseases.