The Human Genome Project - Laying The Groundwork For Thesequencing Of The Human Genome, The Birth Of The Human Genome Project
When the full map of the human genome is known … we shall have passed through a phase of human civilization as significant as, if not more significant than, that which distinguished the age of Galileo from that of Copernicus, or that of Einstein from that of Newton.… We have crossed a boundary of unprecedented importance.… There is no going back.… We are walking hopefully into the scientific foothills of a gigantic mountain range.
—Ian Lloyd, 1990
In 1953 James Watson and Francis Crick described the double helical structure of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). Their molecular DNA structure was published in Nature on April 25, 1953, in an article that was little more than one page. Their article ushered in a new age of discovery in genetics and laid the foundation for the sequencing of the human genome.
The word "genome" was derived from two words—gene and chromosome. Today, "genome" is widely understood to be the entire complement of genetic material in the cell of an organism. A genome is composed of a series of four nitrogenous DNA bases: adenine (A), guanine (G), thymine (T), or cytosine (C). In each organism these bases are arranged in a specific order, or sequence, and this order constitutes the genetic code of the organism. In humans the genome is composed of approximately three billion bases. In 2001 a first draft sequence of the entire human genome was completed and made available to the public for study and research. The National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), which is one of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Human Genome Project completed the full human genome sequence in April 2003.
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During the 1960s and 1970s the techniques that would enable the study of molecular genetics were developed. In 1964 the American virologist Howard Temin (1934–94) worked with ribonucleic acid (RNA) viruses and discovered that Crick's central tenet—that DNA makes RNA, and RNA makes protein—did not always hold true. In 1965 Temin described the process of reverse transcrip…
The first meetings to discuss the feasibility of sequencing the human genome were organized by Robert Sinsheimer (1920–), a molecular biologist and chancellor of the University of California, Santa Cruz, and were held on campus in 1985. The idea of sequencing the human genome generated excitement among the many well-known researchers in attendance—they considered the undertaking to b…
When the HGP began in September 1990, its projected completion date was 2005, at a cost of $3 billion for just the U.S. portion of the research. Ever-improving research techniques—including the use of restriction fragment length polymorphisms, the polymerase chain reaction, bacterial and yeast artificial chromosomes, and pulsed-field gel electrophoresis—accelerated the progress of th…
In April 2000 Celera announced that it was prepared to present the first draft of the human genome. Not unexpectedly, scientists and the public eagerly anticipated this "first look" at the human genome. Although geneticists and other scientists could better comprehend the mechanics and the future implications of this endeavor than the general public, the significance of this achievem…
In July 2002 the DOE Joint Genome Institute (JGI), operated by the University of California at Lawrence, the University of California at Berkeley, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, and Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, announced the draft sequencing, assembly, and analysis of the genome of the Japanese puffer fish (Fugu rubripes). The Fugu Genome Project was initiat…
After the publication of a first-draft human genome in 2000, work continued to fill in the blanks and produce a complete and accurate sequence. On January 10, 2003, another milestone in the human genome sequencing effort was reported: the fourth human chromosome—chromosome 14, the largest one to date, with eighty-seven million base pairs—had been sequenced. Researchers Jean Weissenba…
In October 2004 the HGP further reduced its estimate of the number of human genes from 30,000 to 35,000 to between 20,000 and 25,000. The refined human genome sequence, published in the October 21, 2004, issue of Science, was the most complete version to date. It covered 99% of the gene-containing parts of the human genome,
FIGURE 7.6 Selected landmarks of the human genome project
FIGUR…
The DOE-operated Human Genome Project Information Web site enumerates many of the potential benefits of HGP research. In addition to its role in the practice of molecular medicine, other uses of HGP data and applications of human and other genomic research include:
FIGURE 7.6 Selected landmarks of the human genome project [CONTINUED] SOURCE: "Selected Landmarks of the Human Genome Pro…
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