THE HUMAN GENOME PROJECT AND THE ROLE OF GENETICS IN HEALTH-CARE

The Human Genome Project, the mapping of our 100000 genes and the sequ encing of all of our DNA, will have major impact on biomedical resarch and the therapeutic and preventive health care. The tracing of geneti c diseases to their molecular causes is rapidly expanding diagostic an d preventive options, while the increased insights into molecular path ways open tremendous perspectives for pharmacological and genetic ther apies. The design of animal model systems for the functional study of disease and development of bioinformatics and biostatistics to improve our pattern recognition abilities are greatly accelerating progress. However, the optimal value from the current explosion of 'data mining' possibilities will only be gained when the basic data are made and ke pt publicly accessible, at the same time preventing the jeopardisation of the protection of intellectual property, arising from downstream i nventions. This is one of the goals of HUGO, the international Human G enome Organisation, established 9 years ago to assist coordinating dat a acquisition and exchange and societal implementation of the genome p roject. Additional points of major importance in this historic endeavo ur are the safeguarding of a worldwide balance in the contribution and benefits to countries and population, the prevention of stigmatisatio n and discrimination of individuals and groups and the maintenance of respect for the priceless diversity of our world's cultures and tradit ons.