Revealing The Human Genome Sequence

The human genome sequence consists of DNA, which has four different chemical building blocks, abbreviated as A, T, C, and G. In the human genome sequence, nearly 3 billion bases are arranged along the chromosomes in a special order for each unique individual. To get a better understand of the magnitude of the human genome sequence present in each of our cells, consider the following example: If the DNA sequence of the human genome were compiled in books, the equivalent of 200 volumes the size of a Manhattan telephone book (at 1000 pages each) would be needed to hold it all. So as you can see, the human genome sequence holds a tremendous amount of information, so big that it makes it hard to decode it and read it.

Here is another analogy. It would actually take you more than 9 years to read out loud,without stopping the 3 billion bases in a person's genome sequence. This is calculated on a reading rate of 10 bases per second.

Hence, you can understand why storing all this information is such a great challenge even to computer experts known as bioinformatics specialists. One million bases (called a megabase and abbreviated Mb) of DNA sequence data is equivalent to 1 megabyte of computer data storage space. Since the human genome sequence is 3 billion base pairs long, 3 gigabytes of computer data storage space are needed to store the entire genome for just one person. This includes nucleotide sequence data only and does not include data annotations and other information that can be associated with sequence data.

Decoding the entire human genome sequence is of huge importance and will make an astonishing contribution towards understanding the human evolution, the cause of diseases, and show the connection between the environment and heredity in defining the human condition. The project for decoding the human genome sequence started back 1990 under the name 'The Human Genome Project', in the United States of America, under the direction of the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Department of Energy with a 15-year, $3 billion plan for completing the human genome sequence.

After years of multi-billion-dollar research, the Human Genome Project and Celera Genomics (a non-government biotechnology company) jointly announced drafts of the human genome sequence in 2000. As a result of that, we now know that there are approximately 35,000 genes in each human DNA molecule, comprised of approximately 3 billion chemical bases arranged in precise sequence. We now understand that the DNA structure is one of the biggest scientific discoveries of all time. Our DNA is the entirety of who we are.