The Case Against Perfection: Ethics in the Age of Genetic Engineering

The field of genetic research expanded significantly with the launch of the Human Genome Project in 1990. It was an international research effort in which scientists from the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Japan, and China worked together to map and sequence the human genome. The goal of the Human Genome Project was to enable scientists to gain a better understanding of how genes pass down heritable traits and health conditions. In addition to human DNA, the project also sequenced the genomes of other select organisms, including mice, fruit flies, and the bacterium E. coli. 

The project was declared complete in 2003 when a successful draft of the human genome was sequenced. This draft accounted for 92% of the human genome and contained fewer than 400 gaps of unknown DNA. This was thought to be as accurate as scientists could possibly be at the time, given technological constraints. Years later, in 2022, the Telomere-to-Telomere consortium announced that they had successfully filled in the gaps and produced the first complete human genome sequence.