The Human Genome Project

The human genome project (A.K.A. HGP) was a internationally research project with the goal of mapping the human genome, and also to figure out the location and structure of our estimated 30,000-40,000 genes.

Understanding Genomes

Before explaining what the project is it might be helpful to know what a genome is and why it will be useful to have a map of them.

In each of your cells you have genomes, they are huge collections of genes inside your cells. These genes are made of DNA, and DNA is made up of twisted strands of matching pairs. The pairs are:

• A: Adenine
• T: Thymine
• C: Cytosine
• G: Guanine

A pairs with T and C pairs with G. Your cells use these letters as a code to know how to behave, so everyone has a different code. Your cells work together to make tissue, tissues working together make organs, and your organs working together make you.

In 2003 scientist for the first time sequenced a humans genomes after 20 years of research. They are currently trying to make it easy to sequence someones genes so that you can scan someone and know there genomes in a couple of minutes.

How to Sequence Genomes

So far they have found the genomes by first breaking apart long strings of DNA and separating them into there two strands. They then break the long strands into smaller sections. They use enzymes to copy the small sections so they have thousands of the same piece. All these pieces have the same letter pattern but they have to read the letters some how. First they make there own version of these letters and make them each a different colour and combine them with a special enzymes. They add this to the small sections, at each spot in the genome the special letters will combine with opposite letter of the original genome. The colour then tells the scientist the letter of the original genome. The letters from each piece are taken and put together to make a complete list of all the genomes in a body. This is called the shotgun technique.

Why is it important

The map is important so that scientist can figure out how each piece determines who we are, why we have certain hair colour or eye colour, or why we like the things we do. The genomes can also tell them if you are allergic to a certain type of medicine or if you will have huntington disease. By knowing the specific genomes and what they say about a person may lead to a decrease in genetic mutations. One goal is to be able to take out the mutation and replace it with good DNA.

How it happened

In roughly 1987 the U.S. congress started and funded the HGP that had around 20 different groups of scientists working on it all over the world. A automatic sequencer was used by HGP but it was very slow it took a whole year just to get 1000 letters. They used the sanger method which at the time was thought to be more accurate than the shotgun technique. The head of the project Dr. Francis Collins got fed up very quickly by the slow speed and decided to make his own company called Celera. In this company he used the shotgun technique and he could run his computers 24 hours a day. When Dr. Collins left, the project became a race to the finish, because whoever finished first was going to be famous. The publicly funded HGP did not want to lose to a private company so the leaders got together and decided to get some new equipment to speed up the process. besides their techniques the two companies wanted to do different things with the results. HGP planned to publish the results so everyone could get them for free. Celera wanted to patent the results and sell them to whoever wanted them. In the end they both finished extremely close and called it a tie, the finished in february 2001 which was three years earlier than there estimated finish date.

sources

http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/human-genome-project/ (03.17.17)

Douglas Fraser, Barry LeDrew, Angela Vavitsas, Meredith White-McMahon, (2012). Biology 12. Canada: Nelson education Ltd.