To discover the mystery of the universe is the dream of every scientist. Since human is a part of the universe, therefore to solve the question of explaining the miracle of life is the aim of most scientists. In 20th century, there are 3 national projects in the United States of America and all of them have great achievement and contribution to everyone. The first one, Manhattan Project in 1940s, the Americans invented Atomic Bomb and end the 2nd world war. The second one is Apollo Project raised by America President in 1960s and allows man to walk on the Moon. The final one is Human Genome Project. This is leaded by developed countries in 1980s and is the topic that I am going to discuss in the following essay.
Background of Human Genome Project: (1).
In Perilous Knowledge by Tom Wilkie, there is a chapter talking about the establishment of HGP. From his introduction, I found that the research of HGP had spread over the world including European countries and Asian countries. Robert Sinsheimer, the American microbiologist, was the first one who suggested HGP and biology could undergo those giant research projects like physics and astronomy. He suggested setting up a professional department for HGP. Though his suggestion didnt pass the parliament, it raised a lot of awareness from both opponents and proponents. The opponents worried about the large amount of money would have spent on useless information, as 90% of human's DNA has no function at all. Or else if we know too much about human's DNA, the theory of Eugenics may lead to others big problems that out of expectation. However there were still a lot of proponents, like James Watson, who is the first supervisor of U.S. HGP. .
Establishment of Human Genome Project: (5).
When there were a lot of affairs on HGP between the scientists and the Department of Energy of USA (DOE), the most powerful organization in science, the National Research Council (NRC) decided to start discussion on this topic.