HUMAN GENOME PROJECT

The concept of genomics began with the concept of Human Genome Project in the mid 1980s. The $3 billion project-The Human Genome organization (HUGO) was set up in 1990 to co-ordinate the work of scientists in a number of countries-the USA, Japan, UK, France, Germany, Canada, Israel, Russia, Italy and others- in a project to map all of the genes on human chromosomes. The Human Genome Project started on 1st Oct, 1990 in US to map and sequence the complete set of human chromosomes, as well as those of some of the model organisms.

According to a 1986 report submitted by Department of Energy (USA) " The ultimate goal of this initiative is to understand the human genome" and "knowledge" of the human genome is as necessary to the continuing progress of medicine and other health sciences as knowledge of human anatomy has been for the present state of medicine."
The funding for this project came from the US government through the National Institutes of Health, USA and a UK charity organization, The Wellcome Trust (which funded the Sanger Institute in Great Britain), and some other groups around the world.

The aim of the Human Genome Project was to identify all the genes (approx. 25,000) in human DNA and to determine the sequence of the three billion chemical base pairs that make up human DNA. Efforts were made to create databases to store this information and develop tools to do comprehensive data analysis.
Another important aspect of this project was the decision taken to address the ethical, legal and social issues arising as a outcome of this project. In order to have comparative data, research work was carried out simultaneously on three other organisms namely bacteria- E.Coli, the fruit fly- Drosophila melanogaster, and laboratory mouse.

Another big step forward was the transfer of the technology to the private sector. This approach lead to tremendous progress in the biotechnological field in the later years.

The procedure adopted involved the breaking down of genomes into smaller pieces approximately 150,000 base pairs in length also known as BACs or "bacteria artificial chromosomes". They can be inserted into bacteria where they are copied by the bacterial DNA replication. These pieces are then sequenced separately as a small "shotgun" project and then assembled. The larger (150,000 base pairs) together create chromosomes. This is known as "the Hierarchical shotgun" approach because in this method first the genome is broken into relatively large chunks, which are then mapped to chromosomes before being selected for sequencing.

Every individual has a unique gene sequence therefore the data published by the Human Genome Project does not essentially represent the exact sequence of each and every individual’s genome. The results represent the combined genome of a small number of anonymous donors.
In order to have more information about the human genome project, the readers can visit the following web site:

www.ornl.gov/techresources/Human_Genome/home.shtml