Scientists have spelled out the string of letters in our genetic code, but they have a lot more work to do to fully understand the message. June 26, 2000, marked a milestone in the history of research into the nature of mankind. Two teams of geneticists announced that they had each completed a 'rough draft' of the human genome, the complete set of genetic information in a human cell. The joint announcement was made by Francis Collins, leader of the international publicly funded Human Genome Project (HGP), and J. Craig Venter, president of Celera Genomic Corporation, a private company in Rockville, Maryland. The scientists said that their work would help researchers unravel the deepest secrets or our genes, the minute structures in our cells that determine or influence everything about us, including our physical traits, cellular functions, and behavior. Geneticists predicted that it would take decades to sort through and fully understand all of the information gathered about the human genome. Lay people began to wonder what impact all this information would eventually have on our lives. Many scientists, on the other hand, looked with great hope and anticipation to the knowledge to be gained from the sequencing of the human genome and the practical impact of the sequencing. Other scientists raised ethical, moral, and legal questions about how all this information might be used. Meanwhile, people and organizations throughout the world, including groups of biologists, social scientists, health care professionals, historians, and legal scholars as well as religious leaders, have been considering these questions since 2001; investigation into the implications-ethical, legal and social-inherent in the sequencing of the genome continue. It seems, however, that there is no turning back, and that the best course of action would be to continue the stem cell research that has enabled scientists to go this far, although clearly the ethical issues must be taken into account.