The Human Genome Project: How it changed biology forever

Now weve got the book, now weve got the words and the hard part is figuring out the logic and what all the sentences mean.

Howard Lipshitz

the University of Torontos head of molecular genetics

It was like Gods own jigsaw puzzle.

Built up over evolutionary eons, it featured 46 spiralling, ladder-like structures, some three billion pieces, and it took thousands of scientists working around the globe 13 years to complete.

But that, it turned out, was the easy part.

The Human Genome Project which was presented in its final form 10 years ago this month provided a map of mankinds DNA. But it also opened up a Pandoras box of boggling complexity in the biological sciences and medicine that will take decades more to unravel.

Its mind-blowing actually, says Dr. Jeff Wrana, a top cancer researcher at the University of Toronto.

Its one of those things, you know, be careful what you wish for. .

What genome cartographers had wished for at the projects 1990 inception what the genetic tea leaves had led them to expect was something far simpler than what they found.

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The Human Genome Project: How it changed biology forever