Last updated: March 01, 2011
Human Genome Sequencing
The sequencing of the human genome was the centerpiece of the Human Genome Project. It was truly an international effort. Over twenty labs in six countries were directly involved in the sequencing itself. Many others contributed to the mapping of the human genome and to disseminating the information to the scientific community.
The National Human Genome Research Institute's (NHGRI) human sequencing program began with a set of pilot projects in 1996 and scaled up to full production levels in 1999. A draft version of the sequence was published in Nature in February 2001.
The sequencing effort continued at full strength and is now complete. The completion of the finished sequence coincided with the April 2003, 50th anniversary of the discovery of the DNA double helix by Dr. James Watson and Dr. Francis Crick, and was announced at 50 Years of DNA: From Double Helix to Health, A Celebration of the Genome.
The Completed Human Sequence:
- At the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) [ncbi.nlm.nih.gov]
- At the University of California at Santa Cruz (UCSC) Gateway [genome.ucsc.edu]
- At Ensembl [ensembl.org]