The human genome project hgp was an international scientific research project with the goal of determining the base pairs that make up human dna and of identifying and mapping all of the genes of the human genome from both a physical and a functional standpoint it remains the worlds largest collaborative biological project. Rather than an outward exploration of the planet or the cosmos the hgp was an inward voyage of discovery led by an international team of researchers looking to sequence and map all of the genes together known as the genome of members of our species homo sapiens beginning on october 1 1990 and completed in april 2003 the hgp gave us the . What is the human genome project the human genome project hgp was the international collaborative research program whose goal was the complete mapping and understanding of all the genes of human beings all our genes together are known as our genome. Genome mapping is used to identify and record the location of genes and the distances between genes on a chromosome genome mapping provided a critical starting point for the human genome project a genome map highlights the key landmarks in an organisms genome. The human genome project is expected to produce a sequence of dna representing the functional blueprint and evolutionary history of the human specieshowever only about 3 of this sequence is thought to specify the portions of our 50000 to 100000 genes that encode proteins thus an important part of basic and applied genomics is to identify and localize these genes in a process known as