Human Genome Project By: Scott Kutschke

Brief Overview The mission of the Human Genome Project was to map out all of the human genes that together make the Human Genome. It was an international program. It became a race between two competitors, Celera and the Government Project to see who could completely map the genome first. The Human Genome Project began mapping the genome in October 1990 and finished in April 2003.

Reasons for Starting the Human Genome Project The main goal of the project was to map all three billion of the DNA sequences. The reason for wanting to map all of the genome was to see if by using this map you could find and fix genetic disabilities. People did not fully know the complete use of the map of the genome.

How Many Genes? One of the main goals of the project was to find the number of genes in the Human Genome. The original estimate and what scientists generally agreed on was 100,000 genes. After the Human Genome Project we now know there are 2,100 coding genes. Coding genes are genes that make certain proteins that allow our body to function. Some of these genes make multiple proteins.

Government Project The original project was the Government supported project. Their goal was to map the genome. The Project was headed by Francis Collins. This project wanted to map the entire genome and then place it on the internet for everyone to see and use.

Celera Owned and operated by Craig Venter. Venter was originally part of the government supported Human Genome Project. Venter was the first of the two to go fully mechanical in his sequencing. Celera was a private business and therefore made people pay to view their scientific discoveries.

Original and Modern Mapping Methods The original mapping method was to look at a piece of film with the DNA pairs shown due to probes and to identify the nucleotides with their letters A, G, C, or T. Using this method took them 8 years to map 3% of the human genome. The system became fully automated with technology, this being the new method. Using this new modern method they were able to map the final 97% of the human genome in 5 years.

Ethical, Legal, and Social Issues Who should be able to access personal genetic information and how will it be used? Who owns and controls the genetic information? How reliable and useful is fetal genetic testing? Who owns genes and other pieces of DNA? Where is the line between medical treatment and enhancement? Should testing be preformed when no treatment is available?

Effects of the Human Genome Project Today The project has helped with the discovery of 1,800 diseased genes. There are now 2,000 tests for human conditions. There are 350 biotechnology-based products due to the project in clinical trials. The tools created during the project are still in use in biomedical research.

Bibliography http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/elsi/elsi.shtml http://www.genome.gov/10001772 http://www.genome.gov/12011238 http://genomicscience.energy.gov/index.shtml http://genomics.energy.gov/ http://microbialgenomics.energy.gov/index.shtml https://public.ornl.gov/site/gallery/default.cfm http://www.sanger.ac.uk/about/history/hgp/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/SCIENCE96/ http://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/Resources/genome http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/human-genome/ http://www.google.com/