An open book

In the 1990s, scientists started to discuss how to sequence the human genome, the complete list of genes encoded in human DNA. Two research groups, one directed by James Watson and funded by NIH grants, and another one supervised by Craig Venter and financed by private funding, started a race to be the first one to obtain the complete sequence. In 2000, the US President Bill Clinton, together with Venter and Francis Collins (Watson’s successor), announced that the first draft of the human genome was available. In the last years, cost reduction for sequencing the whole human DNA open several research fields, such as cancer genomics, pharmacogenomics, diagnosis of rare diseases, and genomics of pregnancy, among many others. In the present article, originally published in El Gato y La Caja, the history and impact of this discovery is presented.