1990. The Human Genome Project, an international scientific research project begun in 1989, officially begins sequencing the chemical base pairs that make up human DNA. The project also aimed to identify and map the human genome, with the goal of advancing the understanding of human genetics. It was responsible for many recent advances in human genetics as an effort to map and sequence the estimated 100,000 human genes. A similar Canadian initiative called the Canadian Genome Analysis and Technology Program first started in 1992.

At the outset, the Human Genome Project was expected to take 15 years to complete its initial sequencing. The 'first draft' was produced in 2000, and the last chromosome's sequence produced in 2006. Its impact on the understanding of human genetics and inheritance is still developing. Advances in sequencing technologies now allow private companies to offer tests aimed at providing customers with their predispositions to gene-linked illnesses, and researchers can now use information about particular genes and their effects in their efforts to better understand gene expression. It is projected to have implications for such areas as genetic engineering and prenatal diagnosis, and research emerging from it consequently has a heavy ethical burden to contend with.

Since its inception, it has also sequenced the genetic makeup of several other organisms, including mice, E. Coli and Drosophila melanogastor, or fruit fly - all popular experimental organisms.

For more information about the Human Genome Project, please see the official Information Page or the Wikipedia.

-Leslie Baker and Amy Dyrbye

• U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, & Office of Biological and Environmental Research. (2013). Human Genome Project. Human Genome Project Information Archive, Retrieved from http://www.ornl.gov/hgmis.