The Human Genome Project

The Human Genome Project was a 13 year project which started in 1990 and was coordinated by the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Institutes of Health.



Its goals were to:

• 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.

Even though the Human genome Project has finished,the  analyses of the data, will still continue for many years.

You can look at the timeline of major events of the Human Genome Project on this website http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/project/timeline.shtml

There were many ethical, leagal and social issues with the Human Genome Project. Some of these were:

• Who should have access to personal genetic information, and how will it be used?
• Who owns and controls genetic information?

To deal with these two issues there are two primary pieces of federal legislation which directly apply to genetics nondiscrimination:

1. The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008
2. The 2000 Executive Order to to prohibit discrimination in federal employment based on genetic discrimination.

Other issues which have arisen are:

• How does personal genetic information affect an individual and society's perceptions of that individual?
• How does genomic information affect members of minority communities?
• Do healthcare personnel properly counsel parents about the risks and limitations of genetic technology?
• How reliable and useful is fetal genetic testing?
• What are the larger societal issues raised by new reproductive technologies?

 There were many more issues whci have arisen and they can all be answered on the following website http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/project/about.shtml.