Human Genome Project

The Human Genome Project (aka Human Genome Program) is a thirteen-year operation paid for and controlled by the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Institutes of Health, which began in 1990. The Human Genome Project was expected to last about fifteen years. But, due to improvements in technology, it is now expected to be accomplished in the year 2003. The aims for the project are to identify all of the 30,000 genes in the human DNA, to find the sequences of the three billion chemical base pairs that make up human DNA and to develop better tools for investigating with DNA. To compare DNA for data, scientists studied the bacterium, Escherichia coli, the fruit fly and a laboratory mouse. Benefits of the Human Genome Project include research that help to detect genetic diseases earlier, create new drugs, improve livestock breeding, genetically enhance fruits and vegetables, to lead us closer to cloning a human being, and in DNA identification. The project is included in laboratories in the United States, France, Great Britain, Germany and Japan. On June 26, 2001, the Human Genome Project leaders announced that they have finished a �working draft� of the human genome sequence. The first human chromosome was sequenced in October 1999. It was the 22nd chromosome.

By Robert Sutherland