Advancing Scientific Inquiry by Blurring Research Boundaries.

Source

Director, Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (OBSSR), NIH.

Abstract

It has been just more than a decade since the Human Genome Project (HGP) successfully mapped the entire human genome. Investments in this area of research continue to pay dividends in terms of new knowledge, transforming many different scientific fields from chemistry to epidemiology to forensic science. The scale of this project has been enormous, involving the participation of thousands of investigators and large research facilities, in addition to collaborations between the government and the private sector. In fact, some observers have compared the importance and size of the HGP to the Apollo program that enabled human beings to travel to the moon ( http://www.genome.gov/12011238 ). We have truly witnessed a transforming scientific initiative at the dawn of the new century. (Am J Public Health. Published online ahead of print August 8, 2013: e1. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2013.301589).