The Human Genome Project

The Human Genome Project was first proposed in 1990, to map and sequence human DNA. This grand project was extremely ambitious, aiming to identify almost all 25,000 genes in human DNA, as well as sequence all the base pairs that make up human DNA. It is also a revolutionary piece of scientific advancement that was both costly, in terms of money and time.

The first draft of the project was published in 2001, and the finished sequence was published in 2004. Amazingly at the peak of this project, nucleotides were sequenced at a rate of 1000 nucleotides per second.

The genome project provides us with a blueprint of who were are, and what we are made of. From the project, we saw how little of the genome actually codes for proteins. Most of the remaining genes are long pieces of non-coding DNA (introns) which intervenes with the part of the gene sequence that do code for protein (exons).

Also, sequences what have similar function are conserved through evolution.

This allows us to compare regions of a relate genome of another organism to see how long ago we diverged from a common ancestor. It can also allow us to identify which parts of the genes perform which function, specific disease-causing sequences and possible treatments, as well as give more insight to how our genes are expressed and conserved through replications and evolution. It provides great insight in to future medicinal and health processes; all there is left to do is to analyze the information.

The crucial data found by the Human Genome Project would inspire lots of experiments and clarify many aspects of the human genome that we couldn’t before.

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It would provide the stepping stone and the necessary tools we need for information about new diseases and treatments, paving the path for a lot of new scientific research.

The large cost of this project was in total a great feat in itself. Around 3 billion dollars was spent on this project, and looking in to the future, it is worth it. At a high cost, the utility of the data that was obtained from this project can accelerate the future of science and medicine, as well as treat many diseases and save more lives. The cost of 3 billion dollars to sequence data and genes might seem to be a huge number for a bunch of letters and data, however, looking in to the future and predicting how the data could be used, the possibilities are endless.

If the Human Genome Project could somehow indirectly save the life of one person in the future, then it would be worth it. Money is secondary to lives, and even if you are the richest person in the world, if the medicine or technology is not there, then no matter how much you pay, you will still have the disease and will still suffer.

In my opinion, even if the genome project may seem useless and a waste of money now, it will prove itself to be more than worth it’s cost in the future. The value of the data obtained from the project could not be stressed enough, and only time can tell how valuable the information really is. 3 billion dollars is a small price to pay for a project that can inspire greater things in the future, in fields of scientific and medicinal research.