Sir

The draft sequence of the human genome (Nature 409, 814–958; 2001) is a landmark achievement that will satisfy intellectual curiosity and biotechnological ambitions for a considerable time. Nature is to be applauded for its open publication of the sequence and the many excellent research articles and analyses that accompany it. However, although freely available, access is far from free for all.

Here in west and central Africa we inhabit a communication wasteland, with only fragmentary evidence of the electronic capacity of the twenty-first century. Faced with computer scarcity, limited bandwidth connectivity to the Internet, and few skilled educators to explain molecular biology, access to the human genome sequence is not free. Journal availability throughout the whole region is virtually non-existent, and the costs of personal subscriptions prohibitive. In contrast, all editions of Nature and many other journals are indeed freely available to most students and researchers in Europe and North America, through institutional subscriptions.

Africa came away from the green revolution empty handed; the biotechnology revolution has all but passed it by. If Africa is to exploit the new-found knowledge of the human genome and to participate effectively in the biotechnology revolution, the bottlenecks must be removed.

One critical constraint is access to information. With modest donor support and the goodwill of publishers, online access to journals, books and patents could inspire students and teachers with the latest scientific discoveries, rejuvenate the aspirations of researchers, and provide policy-makers with insights into issues such as biosafety, intellectual property and commercial opportunities. Online information could provide a keystone for Africans to develop innovations that tackle African needs in a continent ravaged by HIV, malaria, malnutrition and poverty.