Dutch Doctor Is First Woman to Have DNA Mapped

`I am a bit surprised myself that nobody else has thought about sequencing a woman,` Marjolein Kriek said in an interview.

A Dutch geneticist has become the first woman to have her DNA mapped -- a process that is rapidly becoming faster and cheaper as equipment and techniques improve.

Marjolein Kriek, 34, is only the fifth person to have their genetic information mapped for scientific study, and says it was high time women took part in mapping the human genome.

"I am a bit surprised myself that nobody else has thought about sequencing a woman," she said in an interview. "At first it was more a matter of 'can we do it,' after that it was a matter of 'if we're going to do it, we have to do it with a woman."

It took the Leiden University Medical Centre's research team nine months to map Kriek's genome, at a cost of about 40,000 euros ($62,000).

This compares with the $300 million and five years needed by researchers funded by the U.S. government to map the first human genome, which was published in full in 2001.

Both the public Human Genome Project and the private venture led by entrepreneur Craig Venter relied on the DNA of several people in making their maps of the genome.

But a few individuals, including Venter, and James Watson who co-discovered the double-helix structure of DNA in 1953, have had their personal genomes mapped as well.

New gene-sequencing machines enable researchers to draw an entire human gene map faster and more cheaply than before.

Several firms are racing to develop faster, more efficient machines that could expand the amount of genetic information available and also be used for diagnosis.

Earlier this year, a U.S. company said it was working on a machine far faster than existing equipment that will be able to draw an entire human gene map in four minutes, for just $1,000.

As in other cases, researchers have mapped Kriek's DNA sequences several times to get an accurate copy.

After six months of analysis, her gene map will be published for other scientists by a research team at the Leiden University Medical Centre.