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Also called the Human Genome Initiative, the Human Genome Project is a international effort launched in 1988 by the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Energy to sequence and then decode all the genes on the 46 chromosomes of humans. The HGP was The project was being completed in the United States the whole time but conducted by The United States, Canada, Japan, Germany, Great Britain, France, and Italy and completed on June 26, 2001. The results of the project showed that there are only about 30,000 to 40,000 human genomes in the human body. By April 2003, the researchers had announced that the sequencing was completed to an accuracy of 99.99 percent. Sequencing the human genome involved laying out the entire genetic code embedded in human DNA. Scientists worked at spelling out more then 3 billion chemical letters that made up the human DNA which can come out to be A, C, G or T. The project had six goals which were:
• identify all the approximately 20,000-25,000 genes in human DNA,
• determine the sequences of the 3 billion chemical base pairs that make up human DNA,
• store this information in databases,
• improve tools for data analysis,
• transfer related technologies to the private sector, and
• address the ethical, legal, and social issues (ELSI) that may arise from the project.
One technology that is used is something called PCR Analysis. PCR (polymerase chain reaction) is used to make millions of exact copies of DNA from a biological sample. DNA amplification with PCR allows DNA analysis on biological samples as small as a few skin cells. With RFLP, DNA samples would have to be about the size of a quarter. Another technology is Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism (RFLP). RFLP is a technique for analyzing the variable lengths of DNA fragments that result from digesting a DNA sample with a special kind of enzyme. This enzyme, a restriction endonuclease, cuts DNA at a specific...