BOSTON--Thirty years from now, human cells may be modeled on computers, medicine may be custom-tailored to each person's genes and humanity will be confronted with the possibility of genetically modifying its children because of the nearly completed sequencing of the human genome.

Dr. Francis Collins laid out a roadmap for the future of genetic research in a talk at Harvard Medical School (HMS) last night.

Collins, who is the director of the publicly-organized effort to sequence and analyze the human genome, made his first appearance at Harvard since the publication of his group's landmark paper interpreting the genome in the scientific journal Nature last week.

He spoke to a packed room in the MEC Amphitheater at HMS. The amphitheater filled to capacity 15 minutes before the scheduled start time of the talk and many in the audience were forced to watch on television monitors from other rooms in the building.

Collins, who has been the director of National Genome Research Institute at the National Institutes of Health since 1993, listed the top ten surprises that came out of his group's analysis of the nearly-completely sequenced human genome.

Among the top surprises are the relatively low number of genes predicted to exist, the discovery of many genes borrowed directly from bacteria and a mutation rate much higher in males than in females that makes males more susceptible to genetic diseases but more responsible for human evolutionary processes.

He spoke frankly about what sorts of scientific discoveries he expects will come from the genome, as well as the ethical dilemmas those discoveries will create.

"The genome told us more about biology than anyone imagined," said Collins.