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The Human Genome Project is launched.

1990

The Story of The Patenting of Life
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The Human Genome Project is launched as an international scientific research project with the goal of identifying the more than 100,000 genes in human DNA.

The project sets out to collect genetic materials from at least 20 individuals from 500 different populations around the world to better understand the evolution, history, and migrations of the human species. It will continue until the project is declared essentially complete in 2003 with 85% of the human genome mapped.

The project has been critiqued for nonconsensually using people's genetic material, particularly people from Indigenous communities.