by Gidon Schwartz, Outreach & Education Executive
Today (20th Oct 2024) is the 20th anniversary of the publication of the Human Genome Project, one of the most influential and important projects in biology of the past 100 years. When the project started in 1990, it was an ambitious project that was expected to take decades to complete. In reality, the teams managed to complete it in just 13 years (it was finished in 2003 and published in 2004). So what is this project and why is it so important to science? How did they manage to produce it in record time? And what does this have to do with the festival we are celebrating this week?
The simple answer is global community.
But before we explore this, let’s explain what it means to sequence a human genome and how it is done. Every living thing has DNA which contains the instructions for the body in order to function, and this DNA is made of a sequence of chemicals represented by the letters A, T, G and C. The complete sequence of these letters is known as that organism’s genome. These can vary in length and complexity from the simple bacteria which causes a Hib infection (Haemophilus influenzae) being 1,830,137 bases (“letters”) long, to the human genome being over 3.2 billion bases long (enough to fill 130 volumes if printed). This just goes to show the scale of the challenge undertaken to sequence the full genome of a human being. The technique used for the sequencing (Sanger sequencing) involves cutting up the genome into small pieces of all different lengths, with bits of code overlapping. Then, the scientists do the most complicated jigsaw puzzle you could imagine. I suppose it would be something to do over the long 3 day chagim…!
This was a brilliant early example of global collaboration (and a little bit of healthy competition between the publicly funded Human Genome Project and the privately funded Celera Genomics encouraging quicker work). The HGP broke up the genome into sections and was simultaneously worked on by 20 labs in 6 countries across 3 continents. Through this global effort, arguably the most important document published this century was completed decades earlier than it could have been imagined when the project was established under the helm of James Watson (yes, the DNA guy).
What, I hear you ask, does this have to do with Sukkot?
There are many unique things about this festival; I have always said this is the hardest one to explain to an outsider with our strange huts and palm branches! But one oft overlooked feature is the sacrifices that were offered in the temple. The sacrifices given on any festival can be used to really see the essence of that festival. Over the 7 days of Sukkot, 70 bulls were offered to represent the 70 nations, which rabbinic tradition uses to represent the entire world. This is what Sukkot really represents – the global community. Both on a communal level, as we take time to invite others to share the festival, as we go out of our homes into the setting of our sukkah and on a global level to look outwards at the global community at how we can help contribute to the world in a similar way to all the labs involved in the Human Genome Project.
Chag Sameach!
