[Significance of SNP analysis on the future medicine]

The human genome project is considered to be the most important project in biology and medicine. The discovery of an entire human genes through this project must revolutionize biological medicine including molecular diagnosis of various diseases and development of novel treatment. The information will accelerate discovery of genes susceptible to or causing various diseases and contribute to screening of novel drugs that target these disease-gene products. In this regard, the recent world-wide effort of the SNP(single nucleotide polymorphism) project in which scientists attempt to discover 300,000 genetic variations in our genome will generate very variable resources. I introduce the recent progress and future direction of human genome analysis and its impact on medicine.