BALTIMORE — Two decades after the scientific world released a first draft of the human genome, a research consortium said Thursday that it has completed the genetic map, opening vast new opportunities to understand the makeup of the human body and improve people’s health.
About 100 government and academic scientists, including some at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, worked on this last part of the Human Genome Project, adding the last and most confounding 8% of genes missing from the blueprint for the human species. They called it a massive undertaking that deployed far more advanced technology than was available 20 years ago.
“Eight percent feels at first glance like a small number,” said Michael Schatz, a consortium member and Johns Hopkins professor of computer science and biology. “But that’s the size of Africa; a whole continent was missing.
