The Human Genome Project

Medical Applications For The Project's Research - Prediction and Prevention of Diseases

• Many common diseases like cancers and heart disease are caused by the interaction of different genes

• If doctors knew what genes predisposed people to what disease, we could all get individually tailored advice on best diet and lifestyle to avoid our likely problems

Medical Applications For The Project's Research - Testing and treatment for inherited disorders

• Inherited disorders are caused by the presence of one or more faulty alleles in a person’s genome

• Thanks to the human genome project, scientists are now able to identify the genes and alleles that are suspected of causing an inherited disorder much more quickly than in the past

Medical Applications For The Project's Research - New and Better Medicine

• Genome research has highlighted some common genetic variations between people

• People can now be tested for a genetic disorder→ as scientists can now design new drugs that are specifically tailored to people with a particular genetic variation

• Knowing how a disease affects us on a molecular level should make it possible to design more effective treatments with fewer side-effects

• Gene therapy has also been invented to treat disorders

Human Genome Project idea

• The big idea was to find every single human gene → so far, the project has helped identify about 1800 genes