In 1990 biologists embarked on one of science’s most ambitious journeys of self-discovery: sequencing every base pair in our genetic code. A decade later, in February 2001, the publicly funded Human Genome Project (HGP) and privately funded Celera Corporation, led by J. Craig Venter, separately published their drafts of the human genome. In 2003 the HGP released a full map. Then...nothing. Finding connections between the genome and disease proved far more complicated than biologists had hoped (or feared). Common diseases turn out to be caused by intricate gene interactions, and genes respond to environmental signals in confusing ways. But just when it seemed as if the Human Genome Project would take us nowhere fast, the burgeoning field of bioinformatics—treating DNA as data—came of age.
Studies of genetic markers had already proved invaluable for evolutionary biology and forensic science, aided by chemist Kary Mullis’s 1983 invention of PCR, an efficient way ...
