And so the bio-sleuths are everywhere. These hardy researchers, equipped with laptops and backpacks filled with tools for collecting samples, are busy extracting the saliva of vampire bats from Mexico and clinically testing it for a substance that might dissolve blood clots in humans; they have patented a sacred Amazonian psychedelic brew, ayuasca; they are spooning microscopic fungus from the soil in Panama. In southern India, botanists are spending time with Irula tribesmen in hopes of determining which berries and plants local medicine men use to cure cobra bites. Taxol, a drug derived from bark found in the rain forest, has been tested as a possible preventive for several types of cancer. Says Helena Paul of London's Gaia Foundation, which promotes biological and cultural diversity: "It's a prospecting fever--like how people used to go to the Yukon to pan for gold." Only now, these prospectors don't stake claims on land but on substances that can be as tiny as a single gene from a bacterium. Indeed, scientists are busy mapping and exploring the human body's 80,000 genes, snipping off DNA strands and rushing to patent offices--sometimes with just the smallest clue as to what these chemical configurations might do, hoping they will eventually lead to cures that will bring riches and renown. Says Paul: "You might just happen to patent the most valuable thing in creation."

Everyone, naturally, stands to gain from new treatments that will help people live longer, healthier lives. But the perplexing question is: Who should reap the profits? Everybody wants a piece of the genetic motherlode, and a complex global battle is shaping up over its ownership. The contest pits industrialized nations against the developing world, multinational companies against ecologists and social activists, and governments against their own tribal people. Not only are these gene wars a threat to scientific advancement--some countries, including India, China and Brazil, are trying to restrict access to their rich biospheres for fear of plunder--but they also raise an ethical dilemma: Should a government, company or scientist have the right to claim ownership to the innermost workings of a living organism?

It's like putting a price tag on an act of God. "Patenting life is a frightening prospect," says Isabelle Meister, a Greenpeace campaigner on gene-technology issues. Indeed, companies often end up trying to pass off as invention what are in fact discoveries--glimpses, really--into the magical processes roiling in nature's crucible. Genuine scientific exploration, warn some biologists, can easily be blocked by private companies that have nailed up no trespassing signs on the DNA double helix.

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