McClintock discovered transposable strands of genes in maize already in the 1940s, but her work was not fully recognized for a generation.

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 433.

McClintock discovered transposable strands of genes in maize already in the 1940s, but her work was not fully recognized for a generation.

The genome may be controlling aspects of its own mutation (see Pennisi 1998 and Chicurel 2001 for an overview).

(1984)

Macroevolutionary transitions, such as that from arthropods to hexapods (insects), may be initiated by point changes in regulatory genes.

McClintock drew this inference by observing changing patterns of coloration in maize kernels over generations of controlled crosses. The idea that genes could move did not seem to fit with what was then known about genes, but improved molecular techniques of the late 1970s and early 1980s allowed other scientists to confirm her discovery, and consequently she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1983. This made McClintock the first American woman to win an unshared Nobel. McClintock was born in Hartford, CT, and obtained her undergraduate and doctoral degrees at Cornell University's College of Agriculture. From 1931-1933 she was supported by a fellowship from the National Research Council; from 1941until her death she worked at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York. Among the many honors awarded her was the National Medal of Science, the US government's highest science award, which she received in 1970.

(2000)

2.7 The Human Genome Project presents its preliminary results: each of the body's 100 trillion cells contains some 3.1 billion nucleotide units. Only 1% of these are thought to be transcriptional, clustered in possibly as few as 30,000 genes.

An accurate chemical map of the genome tells us surprisingly little about how it functions. Targeted experimentation is now possible.

The Human Genome Project (HGP) is an international scientific research project with a primary goal of determining the sequence of chemical base pairs which make up DNA, and of identifying and mapping the approximately 20,000–25,000 genes of the human genome from both a physical and functional standpoint.

The project began in October 1990 and was initially headed by Aristides Patrinos, head of the Office of Biological and Environmental Research in the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science. Francis Collins directed the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) National Human Genome Research Institute efforts. A working draft of the genome was announced in 2000 and a complete one in 2003, with further, more detailed analysis still being published. A parallel project was conducted outside of government by the Celera Corporation, or Celera Genomics, which was formally launched in 1998. Most of the government-sponsored sequencing was performed in universities and research centres from the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, France, Germany and Spain. Researchers continue to identify protein-coding genes and their functions; the objective is to find disease-causing genes and possibly use the information to develop more specific treatments. It also may be possible to locate patterns in gene expression, which could help physicians glean insight into the body's emergent properties.

While the objective of the Human Genome Project is to understand the genetic makeup of the human species, the project has also focused on several other nonhuman organisms such as E. coli, the fruit fly, and the laboratory mouse. It remains one of the largest single investigative projects in modern science.

The Human Genome Project originally aimed to map the nucleotides contained in a human haploid reference genome (more than three billion). Several groups have announced efforts to extend this to diploid human genomes including the International HapMap Project, Applied Biosystems, Perlegen, Illumina, J. Craig Venter Institute, Personal Genome Project, and Roche-454.

The "genome" of any given individual (except for identical twins and cloned organisms) is unique; mapping "the human genome" involves sequencing multiple variations of each gene. The project did not study the entire DNA found in human cells; some heterochromatic areas (about 8% of the total genome) remain un-sequenced.

Critics warn that this research would make it easier to create ethnic bioweapons targeted towards specific populations.