Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

In June 2000 government and industry groups jointly announced that the goal of the worldwide Human Genome Project (HGP) to map and sequence the entire human genome had essentially been completed. Of course, enormous work still lay ahead to understand the specific genes that contribute to human disease and disability, much less to the multitude of complex physical, cognitive, emotional, and behavioral traits of normal humans. No one can confidently predict the rate at which that understanding will be achieved in the future nor the ultimate limits on it. The way in which genes interact with other genes and with different environments only multiplies what we still for the most part do not yet understand. But, despite how much remains to be learned, we have already made great strides in beginning to understand the genetic bases of human nature. Much of the initial work in the HGP has focused on a search for the specific genetic contributions to human disease and disability. The gene has been identified, and tests for it developed, that allow prediction with a very high degree of certainty of whether an individual will develop Huntington's chorea, an adult-onset, single gene disease that leads to devastating neurological deterioration and death over a period of years. In other cases, genes have been identified, and tests for them developed, that only increase individuals'risks of developing ... log in or subscribe to read full text