Human Genome Project Status: COMPLETE

The entire human genome has now been sequenced.

You remember the Human Genome Project, right? It's that little project from 1990 whose goal was to sequence to entire human genome. Remember how everyone was celebrating when it finished in 2003?

Well, here's the thing: It never actually was finished. Until now.

You see, in 2003, 92% of the human genome was sequenced. It was a giant leap in human biology, but not as big as it would have been if the whole genome had been sequenced. So where did that missing 8% go?

It was rather perplexing. With the human genome containing 3.1 billion base pairs and over 30000 genes, we were still missing information in rather important parts of the genome.

Those missing pieces were considered junk, until the brilliant scientists at the Telomere-to-Telomere, or T2T, consortium of the National Human Genome Research Institute discovered they actually contained important information. Not only did the scientists uncover new information, but they also fixed errors in the previous sequencing from 2003.

The scientists at T2T consider this a monumental addition to the Human Genome Project and plan to obtain genomes from hundreds of individuals for a thorough reference genome representing human diversity.

And with modern technology ever-improving and knowledge ever-expanding, I would encourage the complete sequencing of as many organisms as possible. Maybe one day, we'll have the full genome of modern Terra.

For now, though, you can learn more about the T2T project here: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abj6987

For a little less detail, check out this article: https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-03-scientists-finish-decoding-entire-human.html

And finally, here's the official page of the original Human Genome Project: https://www.genome.gov/human-genome-project