Our genome unveiled
Unless the human genome contains a lot of genes that are opaque to our computers, it is clear that we do not gain our undoubted complexity over worms and plants by using many more genes. Understanding what does give us our complexity — our enormous behavioural repertoire, ability to produce conscious action, remarkable physical coordination (shared with other vertebrates), precisely tuned alterations in response to external variations of the environment, learning, memory ... need I go on? — remains a challenge for the future.
David Baltimore
From Nature 15 February 2001
Genome speak
With the draft in hand, researchers have a new tool for studying the regulatory regions and networks of genes. Comparisons with other genomes should reveal common regulatory elements, and the environments of genes shared with other species may offer insight into function and regulation beyond the level of individual genes. The draft is also a starting point for studies of the three-dimensional packing of the genome into a cell's nucleus. Such packing is likely to influence gene regulation ... The human genome lies before us, ready for interpretation.
Peer Bork and Richard Copley
From Nature 15 February 2001
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
11 years ago: The draft human genome. Nature 489, 54 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/489054a
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/489054a