The Human Genome Project
Brief background on what is the human genome project?
The Human Genome Project was an international project, basically a scientific research work
whose aim was to map and decode the genes and genetic sequence of humans. The roots of
the Human Genome Project could be traced back to the early days of Mendel. Later with the
advancement of scientific technique & tools and with the advancement of knowledge, the
programme got into shape in the late 1980s and by 1990 work had started on the actual
project. The actual concrete phase of the Human Genome Project started in the 1980s when it
was becoming increasingly apparent to the scientific community and especially to the
biologists that detailed information on the structure of the DNA was impertinent for a better
understanding of biology. In 1984, the Department of Energy (DOE) sponsored a meeting in
which the main topic was to address the problem of analyzing and finding the rare changes in
DNA in persons exposed to radiation hazards. After this several other meetings took place for
the sequencing of the human genome and finally in 1986 the first formal proposal was made
for the human genome project. In 1990, the project was finally kick started as an ambitious
15 year project for decoding, mapping and sequencing the human genome. The human
genome project was successfully completed in 2003, almost two years before its actual
deadline time of 2005.
The Human Genome Project is concerned with the mapping and understanding of the genes
present in human beings. All human beings have genes in them which contain hereditary and
other information. The sum of all the genes in a human body is called the ‘genome’. Basically
human beings are multi-cellular organisms which means that our bodies are made up of
millions of cells. Each of these cells has some specialised function and all the information
and function of that particular cell is passed on to the new cells by the exchange of genetic
information. This genetic information is contained within the DNA present within the nucleus
of the cells. The nucleus contains the DNA as thin strands known as chromosomes. These
chromosomes divide and replicate during the process of cell division and each new daughter
cells receive the exact copy of the DNA as present in the mother cell. The DNA is made up of
four chemical bases – Adenine, Thymine, Cytosine & Guanine. These four bases are arranged
in different ways and in different lengths and this variation of arrangement of the base pairs
within a DNA molecule makes it a unique gene. The Human Genome Project has revealed
that humans have probably 20,500 genes in total.
Pick an organism that was studied in the project and summarize a study that was conducted
(this can be a published study, etc.)
An organism that was studied as a part of the Human Genome Project was the mouse. The
first draft of the mouse genome was published by 2002 itself. For the experiment and the
analysis of the data, paired-end reads of different insert sizes from libraries were produced
using 384 well trays. Most of the genome of mouse and humans are almost similar and
identical in form barring a few ones. The length of the genome of the mouse is around 2.5
billion DNA letters. In comparison, the human genome is about 14% longer as it is around
2.9 billion letters in length. It was found in the research that almost 90% of the mouse
genome was similar to the human genome and it seems that both the genomes had some
common ancestry. The mouse contains almost similar number of genes in its genome as is
found in human beings.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
Genome.gov,. (2015). An Overview of the Human Genome Project. Retrieved 26 May 2015,
from http://www.genome.gov/12011238
Ndsu.edu,. (2015). Human Genome Project. Retrieved 26 May 2015, from
http://www.ndsu.edu/pubweb/~mcclean/plsc431/students99/rothe.htm
(team), w. (2015). The Human Genome Project - Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute.
Sanger.ac.uk. Retrieved 26 May 2015, from http://www.sanger.ac.uk/about/history/hgp/
Broadinstitute.org,. (2015). Mouse Genome Project | Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard.
Retrieved 26 May 2015, from
https://www.broadinstitute.org/scientific-community/science/projects/mammals-models/
mouse/mouse-genome-project
