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Posted on Apr 22, 2003, 5 a.m.
By Bill Freeman
Scientists at the US National Human Genome Research Institute recently announced that the Human Genome Project has been completed. A "draft" sequence of the 3 billion letters of human DNA that makes up the human genome was completed back in June 2000. Now, just under three years later the map has been completed to 99.
Scientists at the US National Human Genome Research Institute recently announced that the Human Genome Project has been completed. A "draft" sequence of the 3 billion letters of human DNA that makes up the human genome was completed back in June 2000. Now, just under three years later the map has been completed to 99.9% accuracy an impressive two years ahead of schedule. While the gaps that were present in the draft sequence have been filled, scientists have still to fully analyze the sequence. At the moment, scientists at still not sure exactly how many genes a human has, although they believe it is in the region of 30,000. The US National Human Genome Research Institute, which led the project, said in a statement: "Having the essentially complete sequence of the human genome is similar to having all the pages of a manual needed to make the human body."
SOURCE/REFERENCE: Reported by www.reutershealth.com on the 14th April 2003
