On December 9 to 13, 1984 at the the Alta Summit, a ski resort in Utah, the Department of Energy (DOE) and the International Commission for Protection Against Environmental Mutagens and Carcinogens sponsored a meeting which begins the threads of the human genome project. [1, 2, 3, 4]
“Alta links human genome projects to research on the effects of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki 40 years earlier. If genome projects prove important to biology, then historians will note the Alta meeting.”…”The purpose was to ask those working on the front lines of DNA analytical methods to address a specific technical question: could new methods permit direct detection of mutations, and more specifically could any increase in the mutation rate among survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings be detected (in them or in their children)?”
- DOE Office of Science launched the Human Genome Project in 1986
“The idea behind the Alta meeting came from another meeting on March 4 and 5, 1984, in Hiroshima, at which new DNA analytical tools were deemed second highest priority for human mutations research, just behind establishing cell lines from atomic bomb survivors, their progeny, and controls.” The “revolution in biology” triggered by the Human Genome Project, Hiroshima was the justification to spend money!
The US Department of Energy (DOE) genomics project is the link between the gemone and climate change – with the slogan “accelerating discoveries for energy and environment”.