In the last few years two groups, a private consortium and a public one, have been rushing to sequence the human genome and build the “book of life”. The Human Genome Project would provide a catalogue and map documenting each base pair in the human genome. It is envisioned that with this blueprint of humanity, researchers and drug companies would be able to make news discoveries at a much greater pace and could possibly revolutionize several areas of research.

Article one talks about the initial project to sequence the human genome run by the public consortium whose largest contributor was the Whitehead Institute for Genome Research at MIT. It discussed how the research would help drug companies create new drugs and would expose the genetic causes of diseases.

Article two discussed how the genome sequencing of other animals could aid the analysis of the human genome. Since the human genome is extremely similar to

Article six describes how SNP’s have helped identify how a generic HIV drug, protease inhibitors, is ineffective when used on certain Ghanian populations. This is because the population had a certain gene type which created a protein that competitively inhibited the drug due to their chemical similarities. This was an example of how the genome mapping can help identify which drugs will be most effective when treating a patient based on their genetic makeup.

Article four describes the quest of various companies to scan through the genome and identify important genes, which could result in the creation of new families of drugs. Three common approaches are used to accomplish this, association, gene expression, and functional studies. In association studies scientist try to connect genetic markers with disease populations. Gene expression studies genes that are expressed differently in normal and diseased tissue. Functional studies isolate genes whose proteins have roles in causing the disease.

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