The genome atlas of a human being helps find the functional genes that can be used in gene medicine, disease diagnosis, risk forecasting and birth control, said Yang Huanming, an academician at the CAS.

In clinical applications, gene studies help to identify the heredity and environment factors of common diseases, thus improving the health of people in developing countries.

"Complicated diseases such as cardiovascular disease are expected to be identified by 2030, and how these diseases and other malignant tumors break out will be understood," said Yang. Other experts claim that the biggest beneficiaries will be cancer patients and people suffering mental diseases, according to current gene research progress.

With the advancement of genome mapping technology, the life decoding process is picking up speed. "Cost has been greatly reduced, and time has been shortened," Wang noted. When genome map studies reach a mature level, people will be able to find the decisive elements of sick organs as if looking words up in a dictionary.

"Individual genome mapping might be available in a decade," said Yang Shengli, an academician at the Chinese Academic of Engineering. "You will know what medicine to take and how to balance your diet structure." Yang also added that the cost of individual genome mapping is expected to fall to 10,000 yuan ($1,400) in five years.

The big blueprint

In the spring of 1999, when China was engaged in the task of finishing 1 percent of the Human Genome Project (HGP), Wang Jun was still a Ph.D. candidate at the School of Life Sciences at Peking University. He was lucky to be chosen to be part of the project.

The HGP is a mission to sequence the genes of all human beings. It is such a big task that it needs the coordinated efforts of all countries. However, many developing countries have failed to be part of the great science project because of the enormous investment and complicated technology involved.

In 1998, a human genome center was established by the CAS. At that time, five developed countries carried out the work of the HGP almost entirely, with the latest participant Germany only doing 2 percent of the project.

"It's not as easy as you think to sequence human genes, because it is an integrated science of biology, information and other technology," said Yang Huanming, who was then director of the center. "It's not the kind of the problem that a random research lab can just buy a few machines to solve," Yang said.

The HGP has a rigid restriction on its members and had turned town many capable research centers. The Chinese team sequenced 600,000 pairs of bases in less than half a year to demonstrate its capability to take the mission.

In 1999, HGP had its fifth strategy meeting in London and took China into the international genome-mapping club. To join, Chinese scientists had to show they could put all qualified data on the Internet within 24 hours.

"We were required to report all the information, including the area, the design and number of researchers in the lab and how much data the machine could produce in one operation to show how much work we had achieved," Yang recalled. "In the end, we made our promise to be capable of doing the job, and the HGP declared China to be the last participant in the project."

In 2003, scientists from six countries, including China, the United States, Japan, Britain. France and Germany, jointly declared the completion of the human genome project. "This is of historical significance meaning that for the first time we human beings can read the thorough design of ourselves and also modify it," said Liu Jing, a biologist working at Stanford University.

At the same time, Chinese scientists also completed another genome atlas of animals and plants, including the giant panda, chicken, pig, silkworm and rice.

"The science of genome has fundamentally changed people's knowledge about themselves, and also altered the strategy and methodology to studying life sciences," Yang said.

What Is a Genome?

In classical genetics, the genome of a diploid organism, including eukarya, refers to a full set of chromosomes or genes in a gamete; thereby, a regular somatic cell contains two full sets of genomes. In a haploid organism, including bacteria, archaea, virus, and mitochondria, a cell contains only a single set of genome, usually in a single circular or contiguous linear DNA (or RNA for some viruses). In modern molecular biology the genome of an organism is its hereditary information encoded in DNA (or, for some viruses, RNA).

The genome includes both the genes and the non-coding sequences of the DNA. The term was adapted in 1920 by Hans Winkler, Professor of Botany at the University of Hamburg, Germany. The Oxford English Dictionary suggests the name to be a portmanteau of the words gene and chromosome. However, many related words already existed, such as biome and rhizome, forming a vocabulary into which genome fits systematically.

When people say that the genome of a sexually reproducing species has been "sequenced," typically they are referring to a determination of the sequences of one set of autosomes and one of each type of sex chromosome, which together represent both of the possible sexes.

(Source: Wikipedia)