The Human Genome Project Is A Scientific Program

The Human Genome Project was first proposed to Congress in 1990 by Department of Energy and National Institutes of Health as a part of

Introduction All living and once living things have a genetic code; which is made up by DNA. DNA is made up of phosphates, sugars, carbons, nitrogenous bases and hydrogen bonds all put together to make a double helical structure. The nitrogenous bases in DNA are Adenine(A), Thymine(T), Cytosin(C), and Guanine(G). They are bonded

“Mapping the human genome has been compared with putting a man on the moon, but I believe it is more than that. This is the outstanding achievement not only of our lifetime, but in terms of human history. A few months ago I compared the project to the invention of the wheel. On reflection, it is more than that. I can well imagine technology making the wheel obsolete. But this code is the essence of mankind, and as long as humans exists, this code is going to be important and will be used” ( Thomas Michael Dexter). The Human Genome Project is an international collaborative journey of risks to identify and mark all the locations of every gene of the human species. The Human Genome Project in the United States started in 1990 and was thought to

Reasoning behind this that we still do not understand human genes completely and will not know for sure what will come out of the Human Genome Project. People expect the project to improve healthcare, but no one knows if this process will do a reverse effect, or a gene can be simply ignored or even possibly cause a chain reaction that could damage our bodies (APECSEC.org, 2015). Along with not knowing genes completely, there are technical aspects of the genome project that are still flawed and still need to be resolved. The project wants to make an accurate reference sequence of the human genome. The human genome is made up of one compound, DNA. However, DNA is a sequence of different base pairs, adenine, cytosine, guanine, thymine that are arranged in a double helix structure. Yet the genome project wants to direct cell function and ultimately tissue differentiation. There was a complication during the investigation on how to obtain a sample to try to make their sequence of genes and decided to use four individuals. It was found that the DNA came from a limited group of donors in regards to the whole human population. It is also believed that consent to make the DNA sequence public information wasn’t taken from the donors. No one will know if this process will work for everyone or anyone (Ringdahl,

Fossils and DNA Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) is the chemical basis of life (Campbell, 1996). All cells contain the strands of sugar and phosphate. These strands are held together by the four nucleotides; Adenine, Thiamin, Guanine, and Cytosine. Within these strands are millions of genes.

DNA stands for deoxy-ribo-nucleic acid or sometimes called a double helix (Stoyles 8). DNA is structured and shaped by the parent’s chromosomes. The DNA made from the parent's chromosomes make a child’s chromosomes. DNA has four bases they are; Adenine, Cytosine, Thymine, and Guanine (Stoyles 8). This order of the bases creates the genetic code. The bases order helps the body know what proteins it needs to make special characteristics for the child. These proteins control and make up cells, muscle movement, and thinking. When a new cell is made a new copy of DNA is formed and this process continues over and over again.

DNA is made up of nucleotides that contain a phosphate group, a sugar group, and one of four nitrogen bases: adenine, thymine, guanine, and cytosine. It is the life that an organism needs to live and reproduce

The Human Genome project was ultimately introduced in 1985 and by the early 1990's the project began to spread. The collaboration of multiple countries such as, Great Britain, France, Japan, China, and Germany joined the United States in working to complete the project in a minimum of 3 years. Laboratories in these countries mapped and sequenced the project that is known as the Human Genome. All of the genes in a person's body is called a Genome, therefore the name of the project the Human Genome Project. Scientist found that the Human Genome structure displays information on structure, organization, and function of a complete Human Genome. The Human Genome Project is the study of how all DNA is linked and the various mutations that can occur.

The human genome project has its origins in the mid-1980s, but its intellectual roots stretch back further. Alfred Sturtevant an American geneticist created the first Drosophila gene map in 1911. In 1953, Francis Crick and James Watson discovered the double helical structure of the DNA molecule. This discovery was the first crucial step in molecular genome analysis, and in much of the molecular biological research of the last half-century. In the mid-1970s, Frederick Sanger developed techniques to sequence DNA and with this development the idea of analyzing the entire human genome was first proposed by a few academic biologists. The early genome project was established in 1987 and in 1988, Congress funded both the National Institute of Health and the Department of Energy to embark on further exploration of this concept. In 1990 the initial plans for the project were drawn up and made public through a joint research plan, “Understanding Our Genetic Inheritance: The Human Genome Project, The First Five Years, FY 1991-1995.” (NIH, 2012). This initial research plan set out specific goals for the first five years of what was to then predicted to be a 15-year research effort (NIH, 2012). In 2001, the Human Genome Project published its results showing a 90 percent complete sequence of all three billion base pairs in the human genome (NIH, 2012).

Many genetic studies leading up to the start of the human genome project include some of the first research done on the structure of human DNA: In 1952, Rosalind Franklin created Photograph 51 using X-ray crystallography: the first evidence of DNA’s helical structure. Using this evidence, in 1953, James Watson and Francis Crick were the first to model the true structure of DNA as a double helix with sugars and phosphates forming the backbone and the base pairs A-T and C-G pointing inward to the center. They also showed in their model that the base pairs are connected by hydrogen bonds and that the two strands of DNA run in opposite directions but are parallel (Genome unlocking life’s…).

Human Genome Project itself. The team had developed a unique DNA scanning device in the

The Human Genome Project is a global initiative to map the approximately 100,000 genes present in the genome of humans. Planning for the project was started in 1989 with a proposal submitted by the Office of Technology Assessment and the National Research Council. In 1990, the actual project began under the joint leadership of the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Energy. The goals of the project are as follows:

The Human Genome Initiative is a worldwide research effort that has the goal of analyzing the sequence of human DNA and determining the location of all human genes. Begun in 1990, the U.S. Human Genome project was originally planned to last 15 years but now is projected to be complete in 13 years. This project was started to find the 80,000 - 100,000 human genes and to determine the sequence of the 3 - billion chemical bases that make up human DNA. The information generated by the human genome project is expected to be the source book for biomedical fields, including those such as developmental biology and neurobiology, where scientists are just beginning to understand the underlying molecular mechanisms. The

(3)The idea of the Human Genome Project came from an undergraduate researcher for the Thomas Hunt Morgan lab called Alfred Sturtevant, who, in 1911, had to map the genes of fruit flies so that he could manage his data. This would then mean that the Morgan lab can track the results through generations of scientists because they would have his results which they could compare future experiments to. This would then lead to the results being more accurate as they would have a set of results to relate to once they have completed the experiments. Therefore, this would mean that it would make their results would be more reliable.

Due to the DNA’s specificity, samples can be utilised for identification. DNA is a nucleic acid composed of deoxyribose sugar bound to a phosphate group and one of four nitrogenous bases (adenine, guanine, cytosine and thymine). Each section of these three components are referred to as nucleotides, which are joined to the phosphate or sugar of another nucleotide by strong covalent bonds to form a backbone. The nitrogenous bases are joined to complimentary bases of another nucleotide (adenine with thymine, guanine with cytosine) to create a double stranded molecule (Figure 2). To complete the double helical structure, the molecule coils to compact it’s contents. DNA molecules can contain up to two million base pairs, with a human genome containing approximately 3 million base pairs. The random assortment of nitrogenous bases as well as the numerous mutations within certain DNA sequences, results in genetically diverese DNA molecules and genomes between individials.