The main objective/s of "Human Genome Project 1990" was/were _______.
a. To identify 20,000 to 25,000 genes in human.
b. To determine the sequence of 5 billion base pairs in DNA.
c. To incorporate ne

Question

The main objective/s of "Human Genome Project 1990" was/were _______.
a. To identify 20,000 to 25,000 genes in human.
b. To determine  the sequence of 5 billion base pairs in DNA.
c. To incorporate new genomic knowledge into research and medicine.
d. To develop cloning of animals.

UnlockIAS · Accepted Answer

Correct — option (3), Only a. The Human Genome Project (HGP), a 13-year international effort formally launched in October 1990 and completed in 2003, stated its own goals at the outset, and only statement a among the four given here reproduces one of them accurately. Statement a — to identify 20,000 to 25,000 genes in human DNA — is exactly the project's headline goal. Before the project, textbook estimates of human gene count ran as high as 80,000-100,000; the HGP's own sequencing and annotation work revised this down sharply, and by the early-to-mid 2000s the consensus settled at roughly 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes, which is the figure the project is remembered for. That single, verifiable claim is why statement a survives. Statement b fails on its number, not its idea: the HGP did aim to sequence the complete set of base pairs in human DNA, but the actual figure is about 3 billion base pairs, not 5 billion — a factual substitution that breaks the statement even though the underlying goal (sequencing the genome) is real. Statement c, incorporating new genomic knowledge into research and medicine, describes a genuine downstream consequence of the project — the genomics and precision-medicine era it enabled — but it is not one of the goals the HGP itself formally listed (which were: identify all human genes; sequence the 3 billion base pairs; store the data in databases; improve data-analysis tools; transfer the resulting technology to the private sector; and address the ethical, legal and social implications, or ELSI, of the work). Because MPSC is testing the project's own stated objectives rather than its eventual real-world impact, statement c is excluded here. Statement d, developing animal cloning, was never an HGP objective at all — cloning (as in the 1996 birth of Dolly the sheep via somatic cell nuclear transfer) is an unrelated reproductive-biology technique, not a genome-sequencing one. With b, c and d each eliminated for a distinct reason, statement a stands alone, matching option (3).

Why the other options are wrong — (a) This set keeps exactly the two statements that fail: b is undone by its own numbers (the human genome is about 3 billion base pairs, not the 5 billion the statement claims), and d attributes an objective — animal cloning — that the Human Genome Project never held. Cloning and genome sequencing are different lines of biotechnology entirely; the HGP mapped and read the genome, it did not attempt to replicate organisms. Selecting this pair also leaves out statement a, the one claim in the question that is factually accurate and central to what the project is best known for.  (b) This pairs the one demonstrably correct statement, a, with c, which is not wrong in spirit — genomic knowledge genuinely has been incorporated into research and medicine since the HGP — but is not one of the project's own formally stated objectives (identifying genes, sequencing base pairs, building databases, improving analysis tools, technology transfer, and addressing ethical/legal/social implications). Treating a general, true-sounding outcome as an original 'objective' is the exact trap this option sets: it rewards recognising a plausible sentence rather than the project's own documented goal list.  (d) This isolates the statement with the wrong number. The Human Genome Project's sequencing target was the roughly 3 billion base pairs of human DNA, not 5 billion; the idea behind statement b (that the project aimed to sequence the full genome) is genuine, but the specific figure given is not, which is enough to disqualify it on a question built around precise, checkable objectives. Choosing this option also omits statement a, the one objective stated with an accurate number.

Concept: The Human Genome Project was the international effort, coordinated by the US Department of Energy and National Institutes of Health together with international partners, to produce a complete map and sequence of all the DNA in the human genome. It formally began in October 1990 and was declared complete in April 2003. Its own stated goals, as published by the coordinating agencies, were sixfold: identify all the genes in human DNA, estimated at the time to number 20,000 to 25,000; determine the sequence of the roughly 3 billion chemical base pairs that make up human DNA; store this information in accessible databases; improve tools for data analysis; transfer related technologies to the private sector; and address the ethical, legal and social issues (ELSI) that the project's findings might raise. Sequencing effort also extended to model organisms — the mouse, the fruit fly and others — useful for comparative genomics. The project's central technical achievement was reducing the number of estimated human genes far below the six-figure counts once assumed, since a very large majority of the genome does not code for protein.

State PCS 2025 Q63 — Science & Technology PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2025 Q63 — Science & Technology PYQ with Answer