The Human Genome Project – Method (1)

“The pursuit of a single gene is an arduous task… like looking at the Earth from outer space, focusing first on Lake Michigan, then finding Chicago on the shore, narrowing the view down to one neighborhood, finding a specific house, spotting a person sitting in the back yard, and then examining the hairs on the back of her hand.” John Daley, Biologist, Whitehead Institute, US

‘Sequencing the human genome depended on many technological improvements in the production and analysis of sequence data. Key innovations were developed both within and outside the Human Genome Project. Laboratory innovations included four-colour fluorescence-based sequence detection, improved fluorescent dyes, dye-labelled terminators, polymerases specifically designed for sequencing, cycle sequencing and capillary gel electrophoresis. These studies contributed to substantial improvements in the automation, quality and throughput of collecting raw DNA sequence.’ Human Genome Project, Nature