The human genome efforts and the cDNA project

Molecular biology has been moving swiftly toward clarifying the entire genome of organisms, including human. The human genome efforts that promote this transaction are characterized by the large-scale, high throughput production of data about the structure of the genome of the molecular level and its computer-assisted management. In addition, functional analyses of the genome have become important for decoding the entire genetic information carried in the human genome. In the functional analyses of the genome, the large-scale collection of partial cDNA sequences, the cDNA project, is becoming important, because it allows researchers to register genes active in any given tissue, on one hand, and, on the other hand, it allows for quantitative description of gene activities in tissues. Tissue-specific or stage-specific genes can be discovered by comparing expression profiles from different tissues or from a tissue at different stages of development, respectively.