"Gary Locke is a decent guy and brilliant on policy issues, but his leadership is questionable."

BRIAN HEATH
BREMERTON

Proteomic pie portion

I enjoyed your article regarding the emergence of proteomics in the biotechnology industry ["Your genes at work," 5/18]. My comments:

"PE is the hardware arm of the biotech empire founded by Craig Venter, the scientist-entrepreneur who last month claimed to have sequenced the entire human genome." Craig Venter did not found Perkin Elmer. Perkin Elmer's future was well established prior to Venter's emergence on the biotech scene, which was a recent event. PE holds the patent rights to polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and bought Automated Biosystems (ABI), the biotech company (related to Leroy Hood) that holds many of the key patents for automated DNA sequencing. In fact, Celera, Venter's company, is only a division of PE, relies heavily on PE's latest developments in automated DNA sequencing, and is financially dependent on PE's deep pockets. Venter's fortunes prior to Celera came from his starting the Institute of Genome Research (TIGR) and its related commercial partner, Human Genome Sciences (HSGI).

"Seattle and the Eastside look to be the West Coast capital of the action." While a number of talented individuals in academics are developing proteomic technology in the region, the Northwest still lacks the resources necessary to make it a hotbed for proteomics spinoffs. The vast majority of commercial proteomic technology development is centered in the Bay Area, Boston, Bethesda, Maryland (home of NIH), and San Diego. Seattle's portion of the genomics and proteomics company pie is tiny in comparison to these other areas and as of just a year ago, regional interest in funding biotech was lukewarm at best.

Seattle does benefit from having the resources of UW and other institutes, most notably the department of Molecular Biotechnology, the UW Genome Center, and the Institute of Quantitative Biology. Undoubtedly, the intellectual capital from these groups and others at UW will aid in development of startups for genomics and proteomics, but in my opinion, not to the extent that has already occurred in the Bay Area.

HANLEE JI, M.D.
DIVISION OF MEDICAL GENETICS
UW SCHOOL OF MEDICINE

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