Mapping the Human Genome Vision :: Essays Papers

Mapping the Human Genome Vision- In the past, the discovery of human disease genes has historically been an arduous undertaking. Extensive and exhaustive studies of genetic inheritance and pedigrees in generations of families led to the discovery of the color blindness gene on the Y chromosome in the early 1990's. As more biological tools became available, the pace of gene discovery increased. However, much of the biological laboratory practices were still rooted in intensively manual procedures. With the introduction of computing power in the mid-1980's, disproportionate amount of resources were being applied to hundreds of individual gene discovery efforts, such as Huntington's Disease and muscular dystrophy. It was with this realization that a large-scale effort at mapping the human genome was undertaken and in 1990, the Human Genome Project was deemed possible and launched officially by the National Institute of Health (Pollack 1,2). Presently, computers are being used to hold the vast databases of all the sequencing information for every gene of the human DNA strand. If computers were not available, the paper needed to contain all this information would stack higher than the Washington Monument, over 555 feet high. And this would only be for the data, not the analysis of that data. Imagine the nightmare of trying to find the correct gene pair, there are over 3.2 billion of them, in all that paper. But providing a database for the sequencing information of the human genome is only one way in which computers are helping in the mapping of the human genome. They also provide the computational power needed to speed the calculations for each gene as well as producing maps and the such for genetic information on each chromosome (Smith 14). In fact, Compaq Computer Corporation built specific technology enabling completion of the Human Genome. In the future, computing power will become greater and greater allowing for faster calculations and analysis of sequencing data. Also, there will be new robotics, micro-fabrication technologies and laboratory information management systems that will have to be applied to the challenges of the Human Genome Project (Bishop, 137). Furthermore, cutting edge researchers believe the really important discoveries won't come from looking at linear strands of genes but from examining the interaction between dozens of genes at once. Scientists could in theory use "biochips," arrays of hundreds of bits of your DNA placed in a silicon wafer, to examine how how a drug would interact with your particular biochemistry (Moore, 56).