[Importance of the Genome Project]

Methodological and technological development of the molecular biology during the last decades of the twenties century has shifted our interest from the particular to synthetic problems. Studies has been undertaken both at the level of structure of the individual genetic information and on the level of its function and mutual relation within a single cell or in a multicellular organism. This crucial period culminated in the human genome analysis project, which is now celebrating its first major success. Parallel to it came the analysis of genomes of many other, though usually much thinner organisms.