A consortium led by genomics firm Celera and the scientists of the Berkeley Drosophila Genome Project has just published the complete sequence of the genome of the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster, in a series of special articles (and a fold-out map) in the journal Science (24 March issue). The fly genome contains about 13,600 genes - fewer, surprisingly, than the 18,000 found in the genome of the nematode worm Caenorhabditis elegans, which was published at the end of 1998. The Drosophila genome will have enormous importance for human genetics as well, as many genes are essentially shared throughout the animal kingdom, and studies on their function in genetically tractable model organisms such as Drosophila will give insights into their role in humans. Of 289 human genes known to be associated with genetic disease, counterparts to 177 have been detected in the Drosophila DNA sequence. Celera Genomics is also working fast on the human genome, in competition with the publicly funded international effort, and is currently tipped to finish the human sequence by some time next year. Sequencing of the mouse genome is also underway.