There must be a reason for this.
What is the Human Genome Project?
Professor Yang, the China contact of the International Organization of the Human Genome Project and director of the Human Genome Center of the Institute of Genetics, China Academy of Sciences, said that genes are the most basic factors that determine all life phenomena of a biological species. What determines a species is its genetic information, and the carrier of genetic information is DNA. DNA is the entity of genes.
Yang said that human genetic material is DNA, and its sum is the human genome. It is estimated that there are 600-65438+ ten thousand genes in human body, which are composed of about 3 billion base pairs and distributed in 23 pairs of chromosomes in the nucleus. The human genome project is to catch all human genes by casting a net, that is, to determine all the DNA sequences of the human genome, so as to interpret all the genetic codes and reveal all the mysteries of life. Once this plan is completed, we will clearly understand why a person becomes color blind, why he becomes fat and bald, and it is easy to get this disease instead of another. Because of this, this is a scientific project that changes the world and affects everyone.
Dubeck, the Nobel Prize winner, first put forward this plan in a short article published in Science in 1986. 1988, the program was officially funded by the US Congress with US$ 27.9 million, and was officially launched on 1990, 10, 1. Its overall plan is to invest at least $3 billion in analyzing the human genome within 15 years. Soon, the program developed into an international project supported by many governments, involving six countries including the United States, Britain, Japan, Germany, France and China, 16 laboratories and 1 100 biological scientists, computer experts and technicians.
The human genome project has always been a hot topic in the news media in the United States and even the world. Time magazine in the United States disseminates the progress of the plan as an annual major news every year, and the government issues pamphlets to popularize it. In particular, the plan has continuously achieved some phased results. For example, isolating a certain disease-causing gene can predict, diagnose and finally conquer the disease, which has a great influence on the public. After years of hard work, this plan is almost a household name in the United States, Britain and other countries. In the past year or two, the media reports on this project have gradually increased and warmed up, but the public's understanding of this project is far from in-depth. Many people still don't know what genes are, let alone the overall understanding of the human genome project. As one of the six participating countries in this grand project, it is necessary and necessary for us to understand the basic contents of the above-mentioned human genome project.
China joined the Human Genome Project.
China, with a population of 22% of the world's total, is a multi-ethnic country. China's rich population genetic resources are valuable materials for studying human genome diversity, human evolution and human disease-related genes. Since 1987, the national high-tech development plan (863 plan) has paid attention to supporting related technologies for genome research. The China Human Genome Project was officially launched from 1994, and the major project "Study on Gene Structure of Several Sites in China Genome" was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation, the 863 Program and the National Key Basic Research Program (973). 1In August 1998, the Human Genome Center of the Institute of Genetics, China Academy of Sciences was established in Beijing. Subsequently, the National North-South Research Center of Human Genome was established one after another. 1July, 1999, China was registered in the international human genome HGSI. In September of the same year, scientists from China were invited to attend the 5th Symposium on Large-scale Sequencing Strategy of Human Genome held in Cambridge, England, and reached an agreement on our "contract area". The Human Genome Center of the Institute of Genetics of China Academy of Sciences and the National Human Genome North-South Center jointly undertook 1% of the international large-scale sequencing task of the human genome, that is, the sequencing task of 30 million base pairs from the short arm of chromosome 3 to the 30Mb region of telomere. 1999165438+10 In October, experts from the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the national high-tech plan jointly held an expert demonstration meeting in Beijing. Academician is the leader of the expert group of the demonstration meeting. According to the expert review, the project application was approved. In April this year, China completed the construction of 1% human genome sequencing "working frame map" (coverage rate is 90%). Since then, the sequencing of the human genome in China has entered the second stage of synchronization with the world: a complete analysis of the 3 billion base sequence of the human genome was made, and a "complete sequence map" was made, and the accuracy of the whole sequence of the human genome was improved to 99.99%.
According to Zhu Chen, director of the Southern Research Center of the National Human Genome and academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, in the past six years, Qi Xin, a scientific scientist in China, has set up a number of high-level medical centers and national and departmental key laboratories in the field of genetics, established a nationwide network for the collection and preservation of genetic resources, and introduced and established a relatively complete genome research system including genetic and physical mapping, large-scale DNA sequencing, gene location, cloning, mutation detection and bioinformatics. At the same time, a number of international 1% human genome sequencing tasks have been undertaken and completed, showing the world that as the only developing country participating in this task, China's large-scale human genome sequencing work has started and has considerable strength.
Professor Yang said: "Don't underestimate this 1%, which represents that China scientists will occupy a place in the future genetic engineering industry. On this epoch-making milestone, the names of China people are engraved. By participating in this program, we can share data, resources, technology and sound, and finally develop our own genetic resources. "
It is understood that China has become one of the top ten 16 genome centers in the world involved in the construction of DNA sequence maps.
The human genome project has experienced difficulties and obstacles.
Although the Human Genome Project is a "public welfare project" with the goal of benefiting mankind from the beginning, it advocates "international participation and free sharing", but the huge economic value that the Human Genome Project has produced and will produce cannot but make the mercenary private enterprises jealous. The plan has been pushed forward again and again, which is closely related to the competition for gene patents and gene resources by private enterprises.
Paternization of genes means monopolizing the rights of related products developed with these genes in the future. A gene with important functions is worth millions to tens of millions of dollars, and some even hundreds of millions. For example, the transfer fee of "Obesity Gene" reached $654.38+400 million.
Gene monopoly has been opposed by people of insight in the world. Yang, an expert in China, pointed out that if the gene sequence itself is allowed to be patented, the result will be information monopoly, and all gene discoveries will only belong to the first few big companies there. Yang further reminded: "Human beings have only one genome, and there is no distinction between a white genome and a yellow genome. All members of human beings are basically the same. Any study of human genome represents the consistent information of all mankind. The number of human genes is limited. If a deletion is found, the gene will be patented, that is to say, whoever finds a gene belongs to it. This is robbery, just like Columbus landed on the beach! "
When it comes to the human genome project, we can't help but mention a private American company named Celera. 1In May 1998, Parkin Elmer, the world's largest manufacturer of DNA automatic sequencer, invested 300 million dollars to set up Celera Company, claiming to complete the sequencing of the human genome within three years, with the aim of forestalling the human genome project and monopolizing the human genome information. 1May, 999, they advanced this goal by one year. On April 6 this year, Celera suddenly announced the completion of gene sequencing. Four days later, Francis Collins, director of the National Institute of Human Genome, issued a statement saying that Celera's sequencing results were problematic. They should have checked the gene sequencing data of 10 times, only three times.
Whether Celera's sequencing results are credible or not, the only thing that is clear is that this private company is competing with the Human Genome Project. The international human genome organization was forced to advance the sequencing completion time by two years again on May 10 this year. Academician Zhu Chen, a scientist from China, recently commented: "The courage of Celera scientists in genome research has encouraged the company to oppose the public domain. For commercial purposes, some private organizations, including Celera, try to obtain patents on genome data or block related data for a long time. This practice goes against the interests of the majority of the public and hinders the progress of science, so it is opposed by the scientific community. On March 14 this year, US President Bill Clinton and British Prime Minister Tony Blair jointly declared their support for the policy of making genome data public, which obviously frustrated the attempt to monopolize genome data. However, the dispute between' public' and' private' is not over. " Zhu Chen suggested that since China has joined the International Human Genome Project, our government should also take a stand on the general principle of genome data disclosure.
It is in this debate and struggle over gene patents, gene monopoly and gene resources, in the sharp decline of gene sequencing cost, with the huge investment and strong support of relevant governments, and in the situation of great cooperation and competition among scientists all over the world, the human genome project is like an arrow leaving the string, and is rapidly heading for the goal. ...
The genome project will affect many aspects.
Professor Yu Jun, deputy director of the Human Genome Center of the Institute of Genetics, China Academy of Sciences, has worked in the most powerful genome center in the United States for a long time. He believes that the human genome project has revived genomics and made it out of the "ivory tower" and become the frontier discipline of life science, biotechnology and related industries.
Zhu Chen said that the human genome project has brought unprecedented opportunities to promote medical progress. Generally speaking, a pathogenic gene can be used for diagnosis within a few months after its discovery. Gene diagnosis of diseases may develop into an important branch of medicine and realize industrialization. Genetic screening in infancy may find carriers of disease genes or risk genes, which is called "predictive medicine". Although it facilitates the early prevention of diseases, it also brings a series of ethical, legal and sociological problems. Such as: how to protect the privacy of patients? Will their employment and insurance be affected? Whether it will be "genetic discrimination" in society, and so on.
Functional genomics and medical (disease) genomics have also been put on the agenda, aiming at "completing the sequence diagram" of the human genome and aiming at revealing the function and regulation mechanism of the genome. Scientists predict that in the next 10-20 years, human beings will decipher the genetic codes of all model organisms, model genomes and representative organisms. By April 2000, 15, the international human genome project had sequenced the whole genomes of 29 kinds of microorganisms, baker's yeast, Escherichia coli and nematodes, nearly 100% of Drosophila melanogaster and mice. The Human Genome Project has also completed the genome sequencing of dozens of pathogenic microorganisms, such as Helicobacter pylori closely related to the occurrence of stomach diseases, tuberculosis causing lung diseases and treponema pallidum causing syphilis. It is possible to clarify the molecular mechanism of these diseases and design new methods of diagnosis, treatment and prevention, which has good business opportunities.
The human genome project needs the cooperation of mathematics, physics and chemistry to promote the development of related disciplines. In the development of new technology, it is necessary to develop high-yield and automatic DNA sequencing and data analysis technology, genome database and analysis software, gene chip technology and so on. All these provide great opportunities for development. In agriculture, we can use the knowledge and technology accumulated by human genome to genetically modify crops, so that they have some special characters, such as stress resistance, disease resistance, drought resistance, salt and alkali tolerance, cold resistance, insect resistance, pesticide resistance, etc., with high yield and high quality. The economic benefits created in this field will be incalculable.