The Human Genome Project

  1: What is the public project for sequencing the human genome?
  2: Has the human genome been completely sequenced?
  3: How many genes do humans have?
  4: Why is it so difficult to find the genes in a human genome sequence?
  5: Where did the sequenced human DNA come from?
  6: Is the human genome “freely available”? If not, who owns it?
  7: Why was there a Human Genome Project What is its use?
  8: Who were the members of the international consortium What was the role of each of them?
  9: What was the French contribution to the Human Genome Project?
  10: How much did the Human Genome Project cost?
  11: With the end of the Human Genome Project, are the large sequencing centers still useful?

  The number of human genes has been the subject of estimations for a long time; both direct and indirect approaches have been used. However, only the availability of a complete good-quality sequence of the human genome has made a systematic search for genes possible. This sequence is available today, and the “annotation” work, i.e. searching for genes and characterizing them, is on the right track. The human gene count today is approximately 25,000. This figure should not change much in the future: although some genes which have already been listed may be suppressed because they represent vestiges of genes which are no longer active, other new genes remain to be discovered and may compensate for this lowering of the number. In 2000, Genoscope scientists were among the first to suggest a total number of human genes of about 30,000, which was then a value well below estimations which were common at the time (more than a hundred thousand human genes according to some) (see the Press Release and the context). There were even informal bets on the number of human genes in 2000, and a Genoscope scientist was one of the three bettors who was closest to the presently-accepted number.