April 14 - Anniversary of the Completion of the Human Genome Project

Published on April 14, 2021

Key Points

This is an update of my post published on April 14, 2010:

On this date in 2003, a press conference was held to announce the completion of the Human Genome Project, two years earlier than planned.

If you wrote out your genome, it would fill hundreds of
thick, densely printed books!

The goal of the project was to figure out the order of chemical base pairs that make up DNA and to identify and map all 19,000 to 22,000 human genes. Obviously, since nobody has exactly the same genome (other than identical twins), the project of mapping the genome involves sequencing variations of each gene.

Identical twins are (nearly) identical because
they share the same genome.

This project and other parallel projects, as well as work on sequencing the genome of other creatures and comparison of various genomes, has furthered and will continue to be applied to medicine, energy and environmental projects, forensics (such as identifying the victim of a crime), agriculture, ancestry and human evolution, migration, and other assorted topics.

DNA studies tell us a lot about human migration in general (above)
and ancestry for each of us (below) – although these studies are
relatively recent, and findings are approximations.

The more we learn, the more detailed and certain these
approximations are! Note in the various Ancestry-dot-Com
reports below, the percentages of ancestry from various
locations have increased or decreased, or have been
“refined,”as more and more people have been analyzed.

Learn more about Genetics

Here is a wonderful online mini-course on genetics. Each concept has an illustrated explanation, animation, “gallery” of photos or diagrams, some audio-visual clips, biographies of important scientists, a problem or two for kids to answer, and links to other websites. Excellent!

Zoom into your genome is a simple video with images of cells, chromosomes, and DNA. Another educational video about DNA can be found at Clarendon Learning.

Explore the Baby Genetics Calculator and learn more about genes and inheritance. I found the portion about eye color very interesting (scroll down to “Baby Eye Color Calculator”) – especially because I happen to have hazel eyes, and that’s a wildcard of sorts!