Human Genome Project

The Human Genome Project (HGP) is an international project that was coordinated by the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Institutes of Health. Other major partners and additional contributions came from the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Japan, and China. This project was formally initiated in October 1990 and finally completed in 2003. However, analyses of these data will continue for many years to follow.

The goals of HGP were to identify all the genes in human DNA (which is approximately 20,000 to 25,000), determine all of the sequences of the chemical base pairs (about 3 billion) that make up human DNA, store this information and make it available in databases, make improvements on tools used for data analysis, eventually transfer related technologies to the private biotechnology sectors, and address the legal, social, and ethical issues that will ultimately arise as a result of the completion of this project.

Many benefits have been projected as a result of HGP. The benefits from genomic research have potential applications in areas of molecular medicine, energy sources and environmental applications, risk assessment, bioarchaeology, anthropology, evolution, human migration,DNA forensics (identification), agriculture, livestock breeding, and bioprocessing. In addition, commercial development of genomics research will provide U.S. industry with several lucrative opportunities from the sales of DNA-based products and technologies. Overall profits in biotechnology industry are projected to exceed $45 billion by2009.

In regard to molecular medicine (a branch of medicine that deals with the influence of gene expression on disease processes and with genetically based treatments, such as gene therapy), HGP has provided [Page 1224]technology and resources that have already had a widespread impact on biomedical research and clinical medicine. This is being made possible by increasingly detailed genome maps, which have assisted medical researchers in identifying genes associated with several genetic conditions. Clinical improvements will also be seen with more accurate diagnosis of disease, earlier detection of genetic predispositions to disease, rational drug design, gene therapy and control systems for drugs, and pharmacogenomics (the application of a genomic approach to the identification of biological drug targets and interactions). In short, molecular medicine will be defined less by treating symptoms of a disease and more by addressing the fundamental (or genetic) causes of a disease and its pathology.

HGP will also have applications in energy and the environment. Technology initiated in HGP can be utilized in the Microbial Genome Program, which is aimed to sequence the genomes of bacteria useful in energy production, environmental remediation, toxic waste reduction, and industrial processing. Microbial genomics research can be used to create new energy sources (called “biofuels”), to develop environmental monitoring techniques to detect pollutants, to develop safe and efficient environmental remediation, and to develop research for carbon sequestration. In addition, microbial genomics will help researchers to better understand how pathogenic microbes cause disease. Furthermore, research on microbial communities can provide models for understanding biological interactions and evolutionary history.

Understanding the human genome will have a significant impact on scientists' ability to assess health risks posed to individuals exposed to toxic agents; this is known as “risk assessment.” This will be possible by examining the genome to identifying gene(s) that will increase the likelihood of potential harm. Therefore, HGP can improve the assessment of health damage and risks caused by radiation exposure, inducing low-dose exposures, exposure to mutagenic chemicals, cancer-causing toxins, and reducing the likelihood of heritable mutations.

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