Facing a biological century, the 20th century is the century of physics, and the 20th century is the century of beginners. For this judgment, people will soon have the feeling of early summer. In order to better face this biological century, please learn from the genetics. , Let's start with the Human Genome Project... On June 26, 2000, the national leaders of the United States, the United Kingdom and China announced that the Human Genome Project, which lasted nearly ten years, had been completed.The world's major media have reported this great historical event at considerable length.Compare this program to the famous 20th century atomic bomb program and Apollo moon landing program.

Since Mendel proposed the law of inheritance in the last century, countless scientists in genetics in the 20th century have been solving this mystery of human life. In the middle of the 20th century, Watson and Crick discovered the DNA double helix structure, and humans gradually understood genes from the level of molecular biology.Over the years, the rapid development of a series of biotechnology led by genetic engineering has made mankind more aware of the powerful productivity of biotechnology in future science.However, without knowing the positions and functions of all genes, only knowing the positions of thousands of genes on chromosomes, using such biological means, still cannot achieve the huge task of fully understanding the interior of organisms.Even with such miraculous consequences created by later biotechnology, people still have to explore the whole genome.

It is known that our lives and diseases are all related to the information carried on this small gene.Then, whether to do it piecemeal or to organize international cooperation to sequence the entire human genome once and for all has become an important task for scientists and governments. In 1985, American scientist Leonardo Dubeck first proposed the Human Genome Project, and in 1990, the U.S. government officially launched the project.Later, Britain, France, Japan, Germany, and finally China joined forces in this great project. In order to publicize the significance of this scientific project, governments and scientists of various countries have made a lot of efforts to make the public understand the huge impact of genome sequencing work on the future.The many social and ethical issues raised by the genetic revolution and biotechnology are also widely discussed at many levels in Western society.In comparison, my country’s publicity pictures in this area show that it participated relatively late and the science popularization work was weak. Many people gradually began to understand the Human Genome Project from various news media with different formulations after the news was released. of.

During the implementation of the Human Genome Project, countless honest scientists have maintained the fairness and openness of the Human Genome Project with a noble spirit in the contest with the private companies that are blinded by profit, and have also shaped the International Human Genome Project (HGP) with new ideas. )Spirit. The International Cooperative Human Genome Project formed the Human Genome Declaration in 1997, which was approved by UNESCO and became the first declaration on scientific research in history.It fully reflects the possible economic, ethical, legal and social impacts of the "Human Genome Project", and because of its urgency and seriousness, it has become a part of the norms of human beings in the biological century of the 21st century.It established four basic principles: human dignity and equality, research freedom of scientists, human harmony, and international cooperation.

Chinese scientists participated in this project in 1998. They not only completed 1% of this milestone work with their own efforts, but also strived to keep China's genome science in sync with the international ones in the process.They also introduced the important features of the future biological century to the Chinese people with anxiety and tenacious efforts. It was inspired by their anxiety and urgency that we integrated materials from various sources and edited this book, which includes historical retrospectives and narrations by scientists during the implementation of the Genome Project.Our aim is to provide a deeper level of knowledge and situation than the news reports of the previous period, so that readers feel as urgently as we do about the pressing issues of the biological century.

The first century is the century of physics, and the second century is the century of biology. People will soon have a personal feeling for this judgment. In order to better face this biological century, please start with genes and the Human Genome Project. !