Human Genome Project will live up to its potential: NIH director

A decade after the historic completion of the "book of life" -- the first blueprint of human DNA, the benefits of the Human Genome Project still lie ahead. However, Francis Collins, director of the U.S. National Institute of Health (NIH), is "confident" the project will live up to its potential.

"The First Law of Technology states that a truly transformational discovery will always have its immediate consequences overestimated -- and its long-term consequences, underestimated. That certainly is turning out to be true from what we are learning about the human genome sequence!" Collins told Xinhua in an interview.

"The greatest significance of the Human Genome Project is the door that it has opened into the vast and complex landscape of human biology," Collins said. "Exploring this landscape in a way that benefits human health will require creative thinking and hard work by researchers in the United States, China, and everywhere else around the globe."

Collins, noted for his leadership of the project, thought having the complete sequence of the human genome is similar to having all the pages of an instruction manual needed to make the human body.

"Thanks to the sequencing of the human genome, we have much more powerful tools to study the role that genetic factors play in more complex diseases, such as cancer, diabetes, and heart disease, and even in susceptibility to infectious diseases, such as acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS)," he said. "Genomic sequencing has facilitated the diagnosis of genetic conditions, ranging from very rare to quite common. It is shedding new light on the process of aging and providing tantalizing clues to the secrets of longevity. If we fully understand this instruction manual, it could become the most powerful textbook of medicine imaginable!"


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