The Human Genome Project Aims for 2003

Bold is the operative word for the goals in the new five-year plan for the U.S. Human Genome Project as presented at the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) advisory council meeting on September 14, 1998. (See Box 1 for an overview of the 5-year plan. The complete plan is published in the October 23, 1998 issue of Science.) The plan itself includes such words as “ambitious” and even “audacious,” reflecting the committee’s own perception that the agenda is one that will require extreme diligence and effort to achieve. The most notable point is the call for the completion of the human genome sequence in the year 2003—a full 2 years earlier than originally planned and corresponding to the 50th anniversary of the discovery of the double helix structure of DNA (Watson and Crick 1953).