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The Human Genome Project
by Howard Davis
Sometimes likened to the race to put a man on the moon, the decade-old Human Genome Project effort to decode our genes recently had been churning out 12,000 letters of genetic code every minute of every day, creating a list that will total more than three billion when finally completed. More than 1,100 biologists, computer scientists and analysts at university laboratories in six countries have been hard at work trying to complete what some are calling biology's version of the book of life.
The glory of your genome
You may have heard much about the human genome in recent months, and there's more to come. But what exactly is the genome, and what does it mean for us?
In elementary school we learn that everything we see is made up of atoms. We learn that atoms combine to make molecules. But we only hazily understand how tiny atoms and molecules come together to make you and me the living creatures we are-filled with the wonder, complexity, potential and choices we live with daily.
How do atoms and molecules work together to create the unique being that is you?
The search to discover the answer to that question is perhaps the greatest story
of sleuthing in science.
All biological life is made up of an astonishingly complex blend of molecules. They combine, break down and recombine into the same or a myriad of other forms of molecules. Continuously, day in and day out, trillions of actions and reactions of molecules occur every second in processes that provide energy, food and cell maintenance for our bodies.
What blueprint, what set of instructions, tells these atoms and molecules what
to
do? The Human Genome Project aims to solve that mystery-and in such breathtaking
detail that even the scientific world is awestruck.
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