Biotechnology, Human Genome Project

The need to develop new materials for electrophoretic analysis and macromolecular separations prompted by the needs of the human genome project and the rapidly advancing fields associated with biotechnology, advances in the development of new analytical instrumentation—especially capillary electrophoresis, and practical limitations of the media currently used for gel electrophoresis [73]... 

Information flowing from the Human Genome Project is having major influences in fields such as proteomics, bioinformatics, biotechnology, and pharmacogenomics as well as all areas of biology and medicine. 

The work of the Human Genome Project has allowed researchers to begin to understand the blueprint for building a person. As researchers learn more about the functions of genes and proteins, this knowledge will have a major impact in the fields of medicine, biotechnology,... 

In the eighth decade of his life, Berg remains active both as a researcher and as an advocate for the scientific community at the state and federal levels. In addition to serving as chair of the scientific advisory committee of the Human Genome Project, he has spoken and written in support of federal and state financing for stem cell research, human cloning, and other forms of biotechnology. 

Largely because of advances in biotechnology, the initial working draft of the human genome sequence was completed in 2000, well ahead of schedule. In April of 2003,50 years after James Watson and Francis Crick described the double-helix structure of DNA and over 2 years ahead of schedule, researchers announced the completion of the Human Genome Project. The final version contains 99% of the gene-containing sequence, with 99.9% accuracy. 

In June 2000, two teams of scientists (one from a private biotechnology company and one from the publicly funded Human Genome Project) announced that they had completed the first draft of the sequence of the 3.1 billion base pairs in human DNA. This is an enormous accomplishment. For example, if the sequence of 1 million base pairs were determined each day, it would take more than 10 years to complete the sequence of the human genome. 

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