  Although the HGP's inceptions were in the U.S., it had not taken long for mapping and sequencing the human genome to become an international venture (see Cook-Deegan 1994). France began to fund genome research in 1988 and had developed a more centralized, although not very well-funded, program by 1990. More significant were the contributions of Centre d’Etudes du Polymorphisme Humain (CEPH) and Généthon. CEPH, founded in 1983 by Jean Dausset, maintained a collection of DNA donated by intergenerational families to help in the study of hereditary disease; Jean Weissenbach led an international effort to construct a complete genetic map of the human genome using the CEPH collection; later, with funding from the French muscular dystrophy association (AFM), director Daniel Cohen set out to construct a YAC clone library for physical mapping and oversaw the launching of Généthon in 1991 as an industrial-sized mapping and sequencing operation funded by the AFM. The U.K.'s genome project received its official start in 1989 although Sydney Brenner had commenced genome research at the Medical Research Council (MRC) laboratory several years before this. MRC funding was supplemented with private monies from the Imperial Cancer Research Fund, and later, the Wellcome Trust. The Sanger Centre, led by John Sulston and funded by Wellcome and the MRC, opened in October 1993. A combined four-year, 15-million-euro genome program by the European Community (E.C.) commenced in 1990. Germany, its citizens all too aware of abuses in the name of genetics, lagged behind other European countries: although individual researchers received government funds for genome research in the late-1980s and participated in the E.C. initiative, no actual national genome project was undertaken until 1995 (Kahn 1996). Japan, ahead of the U.S. in having funded the development of automated sequencing technologies since the early 1980s, was the major genome player outside the U.S. and Europe with several government agencies beginning small-scale genome projects in the late-1980s and early- 1990s, but a frequent target of U.S. criticism for the size of its investment relative to  GNP.[7] China was the latecomer on the international scene: with 250 million yuan ($30 million) over three years from government and industry, the Chinese National Human Genome Center with branches in Beijing and Shanghai opened in July 1998, and was followed in 1999 by the Beijing Genomics  Institute.[8]