List of Events in NHGRI History - 2000

2000

• February 2000 – President Clinton signs Executive Order to prevent genetic discrimination in any federal workplace.
• March 2000 – Public consortium of scientists and a private company release a substantially complete genome sequence of the fruitfly (Drosophila melanogaster). The findings are reported in the March 24 issue of Science .
• April 3–6, 2000 – The National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Office of Rare Disease Research, and the Don and Linda Carter Foundation sponsor the first NIH Conference on Holoprosencephaly.
• May 2000 – Scientists in Japan and Germany report in the May 18 issue of Nature that they have unraveled the genome of human chromosome 21, already known to be involved with Down syndrome, Alzheimer's disease, Usher syndrome and Lou Gehrig's disease.
• June 2000 – The Human Genome Project (HGP) consortium announces a major milestone: It has assembled 85 percent of the sequence of the human genome – the genetic blueprint for a human being.
• August 2000 – Scientists discover a genetic "signature" that may help explain how malignant melanoma – a deadly form of skin cancer – can spread to other parts of the body. Findings are reported in the August 3 issue of Nature.
• October 2000 – The National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Wellcome Trust, and three private companies collaborate to form the Mouse Genome Sequencing Consortium (MGSC) to accelerate the determination of the DNA sequence of the mouse genome.
• October 2000 – The Human Genome Project (HGP) is the recipient of the American Society of Human Genetics' Allan Award to honor the hundreds of scientists involved in deciphering the human genome.