Celera is a subsidiary of the PE Corporation of Norwalk, Conn., which also makes the machines used to sequence the genome.

Dr. Venter was joined by Tony White, president of Celera's parent company, the PE Corporation.

On November 30, 2000, PE Corporation changed its name to Applera, combining the two partial names Applied and Celera into one, with 5,000 employees.

Perkin-Elmer, the life-sciences concern now known as the PE Corporation, chose 3M in February as a joint venture partner for genetic analysis.

The PE Corporation is contemplating a name change, too.

At that point the remaining Connecticut Life Sciences company issued its two tracking stocks, and also changed its own name to PE Corporation.

On April 28, 1999, the two replacement tracking stocks for the new PE Corporation were issued to shareholders.

Now the PE Corporation, it has sold off its well-known instrument making operations and transformed itself into a pure genome company.

Celera, a unit of the PE Corporation, promises to make its version of the human genome freely available when it is finished, probably this summer.

The old Perkin-Elmer Board of Directors and Officers remained at that reorganized company under its new name, PE Corporation.