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More than 15 years ago the Human Genome Project (HGP) was started as an international effort to decode its billion of bases.
Its most extraordinary promise: A big revolution in Medicine. Its results will rid the world of many if not all the major diseases. Diseases that cost the world hundreds of millions of dollars each year. We were going to know the molecular causes of the different diseases, to develop new weapons to attack them, and, among other things, be able to detect our susceptibility to them even before we were born. Also through the technologies spinning off the HGP, all sorts of new, more nutritious, heat and acid resistant plants will be produced. Also plants able to produce human vaccines and even materials such as natural silk. If I make an assessment of the results obtained up to the moment, I would have to conclude that in my first article I did not get even closer to how long "THE LONG ROAD AHEAD OF THE HUMAN GENOME PROJECT" was going to be. The first complete draft was presented when the year 2000 was born. It was finished ahead of the initial date. Such accomplishment was due to the new bold approach of Craig Venter, head of the company Celera at that moment. There was a dispute between the government and the private funded programs. Presently, it is not possible to conclude what approach was better in quality. In quantity, however, it is obvious that Venter´s approach won. They have sequenced the genome of man, some protozoan and more than 10 different microbes, among others. The results of both programs have brought a truckload of new knowledge, that in many cases has shed light to different molecular mechanisms. One of the most interesting and that is bound to make the scientists to take new ways of looking at the functioning of the human genome is the number of genes that we have. The final number is not yet known, but it seems to be very much smaller (30,000 to 50,000) than the number that was considered to be correct for more than 25 years: 150,000. But in many more it has demonstrated that our understanding of the functioning of the Human Genome, and of the Human body as consequence is very far from being completed. New sciences have come out of the HGP: Bioinformatics, Pharmacogenomics, Proteomics, Transcriptonomics and others. Go To Page: 1 2
The copyright of the article THE PROMISES OF THE HUMAN GENOME PROJECT in Molecular Biology/Medicine is owned by . Permission to republish THE PROMISES OF THE HUMAN GENOME PROJECT in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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