Human genome project (HGP) was called a mega project and was launched in the year 1990. It is said to have approximately 3 x 109 bp, and if the cost of sequencing required is US $ 3 per bp, the total estimated cost of the project would be approximately 9 billion US$. If the obtained sequences were to be stored in typed form in books, and if each page of the book contained 1000 letters and each book contained 1000 pages, then 3300 such books woule be required to store the information of DNA sequence from a single human cell. The enormous amount of data expected to be generated also necessitated the use of high speed computational devices for data storage and retrieval, and analysis. HGP was closely associated with the rapid development of a new area in biology called Bioinformatics. The goals of HGP are following:–
(y) Identify all the approximately 20,000-25,000 genes in human DNA;
(z) Determine the sequences of the 3 billion chemical base pairs that make up human DNA;
(aa) Store this information in databases;
(bb) Improve tools for data analysis;
(cc) Transfer related technologies to other sectors, such as industries;
(dd) Address the ethical, legal and social issues that may arise from the project.
