How has the Human Genome Project affected biological research?
Biological research has traditionally been a very individualistic enterprise, with researchers pursuing medical investigations more or less independently. The magnitude of both the technological challenge and the necessary financial investment prompted the Human Genome Project to assemble interdisciplinary teams, encompassing engineering and informatics as well as biology; automate procedures wherever possible; and concentrate research in major centers to maximize economies of scale. As a result, research involving other genome-related projects (e.g., the International HapMap Project to study human genetic variation and the Encyclopedia of DNA Elements, or ENCODE, project) is now characterized by large-scale, cooperative efforts involving many institutions, often from many different nations, working collaboratively. The era of team-oriented research in biology is here. In addition to introducing large-scale approaches to biology, the Human Genome Project has produced all sorts of new t
