What is the Human Genome Project, how does it effect us and how did it come to be?
4 billion or more years ago, the first spec of life appeared as a bubble. This may not seem important, but this bubble wrote the chemical code for life, and then passed it on. This object that was passed on is DNA, which carries a person's individual traits. A DNA molecule consists of two strands that wrap around each other in the form of a double helix, whose sides, made of sugar and phosphate molecules, are connected by nitrogen, containing bases. The Four different bases that are present in DNA are adenine, thymine, cytosine, and guanine. The particular order of these base pairs is called the DNA sequence which specifies the exact genetic instructions required to create a particular organism with its own unique traits. Every three base pairs that a person has makes up a gene, and it is said today that a human has approximately 30,000 genes. To many doctors, DNA is considered the personal diary of each person, containing everything that has to do with someone's life,! how they will live their lives, what will go on in a person's life, and how they will die. One problem has presented itself though, the human genome contains roughly 3 billion base pairs. When scientists tried to find b
to their offspring, as the result of incorrect attachment producing duplications and deletions, be unbalanced. It is estimated that 1:550 individuals on this earth may contain a balanced translocation. If three or more miscarriages occur in a family, their is a possibility that unbalance could be suspected. The last type of mutation is gene mutation. Gene mutations occur at a frequency of 1/100,000 - 1,000,000. Since one gene is base pairs of a DNA molecule, it is also commenly reffered to as DNA rearrangements. One DNA arrangement is called a deletion. This is when portions of a base pairing sequence may be erased. This usually occurs with less than 20 base pairs may be involved. Duplications, another type of DNA arrangement is when exact copies of a DNA sequence. Another type of DNA arrangenment occurs is Substitution. Substitutions involve replacement of one sequence fragment with another sequence. The last type is Insertions. Insertions can occur by the movement of specific sequences and insertion into a gene. Examples include AluI repetitive sequence insertion leading to neurofibromatosis type I and hemophilia. With all of these mutations that can occur in the human body, it seems like someone is almost always destined to have a mutation that could occur within their body. But by mapping the entire genome, scientists can say that they can detect the gene of a disease, which gives someone the advantage of early detection. This can be of much use for example, with cancer. It is said that if cancer is r! the first, started his company out of a lab from Buffalo. It was discovered that about 97 percent of the Human Genome consists of non-genetic sequences with unknown function, or called "junk DNA." This DNA is found to be identicle in every human being, and, the other 3 percent contains the genetic sequence that gives everyone their individuality. This 3 percent is what codes for any types of diseases of malefunctions that a human body may have. So with this information, Dr. Ventner predicted that he would have mapped the entire human genome by the year 2000. His company (Celera Genomics) took DNA that was based on five donors who identified themselves only by race and sex. The different races taken were of 2 Caucasions, 1 Black, 1 Hispanic, and one person who claimed to have Chineese ancestry. These 5 different people proved the fact that 97 percent of the Human DNA is identicle, and scientists found that remaining 3 percent to code for everyone's own specific traits.! is estimated to have cost $3,000,000,000 and on December of 1999, Celera Genomics proved that it was worth it by completing the first assembly of the human genome, using whole-genome shotgun sequencing. Then, on June 26, 2000, an announcement at the White Ho
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Approximate Word count = 1872
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)
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