What is the Human Genome Project and what role do the cell collections in Coriell Cell Repositories play in it?
In 1989, the scientific community embarked on the Human Genome Project, the effort to find and determine the sequence of the code for all 100,000 genes that make humans what they are. On June 26, 2000 the announcement was made that a rough draft, constituting greater than 90% of this sequence, is complete. When Coriell began collecting cells in the early 1960s, we knew they would be important in understanding disease. We did not know, however, that we would be building a central genetic resource for the many studies that would emerge from the revolution that is taking place in biotechnology. The outcome of this Project will be the next generation of medical practice, and that will be as different from today’s medicine as today’s medicine is from the medieval blood-letting to vent ill humors.
