The Human Genome Project - Brutes or Angels: Human Possibility in the Age of Biotechnology - page 111

These are called single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), and cataloging them
is very helpful for finding disease-associated genes and in studying human
diversity and evolution (chapter 5).
The hGP met all six of its objectives in record time and under budget.
By 2003 the hGP was completed, and results for the first two objectives
were reported in the journal Nature in 2004 (ihGsC 2004). The remain-
ing four objectives were addressed regularly throughout the thirteen-year
duration of the project.
The genomic information, licensed technologies to private companies,
and research grants to the private sector that emerged from the hGP
spawned a multibillion-dollar, international biotechnology industry. fi-
nally, much attention was given to the ethical, legal, and social issues as-
sociated with human genomics, the subject of the second half of this chap-
ter. now let's see who actually did the work and how they approached the
problem of sequencing 3.1 billion bases of DnA.
Who Sequenced the Human Genome, How Did They
Do It, and Whose DNA Did They Use?
Two groups sequenced the human genome: the Public Consortium (ihGsC)
and Celera Genomics, a private company headed by molecular biologist
and entrepreneur J. Craig venter. The ihGsC was coordinated by the
Doe and nih. in addition to the six countries in the ihGsC, a dozen
other countries established sequencing centers to help in the project. more
than 2,000 scientists contributed data to the Public Consortium. Celera
Genomics' sequencing work was done by approximately 250 scientists. The
majority of these were employed by Celera, but a few others were from
some American universities and institutions in Australia, israel, and spain.
Two approaches to genome sequencing. The Public Consortium and the Celera
Genomics group used different strategies to sequence the human genome.
The ihGsC used a method called hierarchical sequencing to decode the
human genome, whereas the Celera Genomics group used a whole-genome
shotgun- sequencing method.
in the hierarchical method, genomic DnA is cut into many large, over-
lapping pieces of about 150 million bases pairs each. modern laboratory