This Article  • Full text  • PDF  • Reply to article  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in this journal  Topic Collections  • Genetics, Other  • Alert me on articles by topic

Arch Neurol. 2001;58:1764-1765.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

THE SEQUENCING of the human genome is one of the landmark achievements of science.^{1, 2} It has been appropriately compared with the Manhattan Project splitting the atom and the Space Program placing a human on the moon. These analogies are especially apt because they emphasize the magnitude of the achievement, the tremendous potential for improvement of society, and the uneasy feeling of unforeseen risk.

Our previous knowledge of the genome was as if a huge library had millions of books strewn in a jumble on the floor. The Human Genome Project has now placed all of the books on the proper shelves in the correct order. It is a magnificent collection but the books have to be translated, read, understood, and related to each other as well to the outside world. That is, we need to determine what each gene does, what the function is of each protein produced, and how . . . [Full Text of this Article]