Human Genome Project (HGP) was designed to provided detailed and complete information about the genes in human DNA. Not funded by any private corporation, the HGP will generate information that can be used by a wide variety of agencies and companies in the 21st century and beyond (Guyer & Collins, 1995). With this information, scientists can greatly improve how they perform human research, and the medical implications may have few limits.
When completed, scientists and researchers will have a map of human the 50,000-100,000 genes contained in human DNA. In addition, since some research with genetic implications for humans is done with other organisms, those organisms will also be mapped (McDaniel, 2005). The HGP currently stands as the single most dramatic sphere of biological research, and holds the power to change studies in biology and psychology as well as medicine. Currently in its final stage, parts of the human DNA sequences have...
al., 1998).
The project has been broken into several stages and has already provided important new information about human genes, resulting in ethical questions that require carefully judged and thoughtful answers (Guyer & Collins, 1995). This is because while the information from the HGP provides large amounts of data for researchers, it now can also provide important genetic information for individuals as well. In the past, medicine's understanding of genetics was limited to diseases with clear and easy-to-spot genetic ties, such as Down Syndrome, a developmental problem that causes a variety of physical problems as well as mental retardation, and Huntington's Chorea, a generative neurological disease (Collins et. al., 1998).
However, as our knowledge of genetics has become more sophisticated, we now know that some…
