The Human Genome Project began in 1990 with a 15-year plan to sequence all the base pairs that comprise the human genome. Dr. George Church, then at the beginning of his career as a professor at Harvard Medical School, sought to make sequencing faster and cheaper, allowing for more replications and robust data. In 2003, the Project completed its main objectives by sequencing 92 percent of the genome and fueling a rapid expansion in biomedical research. Dr. Church then advocated for more genomes to be sequenced enabling comparisons, fueling a positive feedback loop of DNA reading, writing, and new tool discovery.

New technologies have driven the costs of DNA sequencing well below the $3 billion that funded the Human Genome Project, with some companies charging only $100. This era of cheap genome reading has enabled the dawn of synthetic biology – the science of writing genomes to obtain greater biological diversity than what nature can provide. Synthetic systems can utilize elements and bonds not found in our current biology, redesigning organisms and engineering them to have new capabilities, opening endless possibilities for the future. In this clip, Dr. George Church discusses the Human Genome Project and how it has revolutionized many areas of science.