The Human Genome Project (HGP) was an international scientific effort to sequence the entire human genome, that is, to produce a map of the base pairs of DNA in the human chromosomes, most of which do not vary among individuals. The HGP started in the US in 1990 as a public effort and included scientists and laboratories located in France, Germany, Japan, China, and the United Kingdom. Scientists hypothesized that mapping and sequencing the human genome would facilitate better theories of human development, the genetic causes and predispositions for a number of diseases, and individualized medicine. The HGP, alongside the private effort taken up by the company Celera Genomics, released a working draft of the human genome in 2001 and a complete sequence in 2003. The history of the HGP ripples beyond biomedical science and technology into the social, economic, and political.

The 1,000 Genomes Project, which began in 2008, was an international effort to create a detailed and publicly accessible catalog of human genetic variation to support medical studies aimed at exploring genetic contributions to disease. Project scientists sequenced the entire genomes of 2,504 individuals from around the world—more than the 1,000 originally planned. The Project extended the results of the International HapMap Project, a prior effort at cataloging human genetic variation that ran from 2002 through 2010. Whereas the HapMap identified common genetic variants, meaning specific DNA sequences present in five percent or more of individuals in a population, the 1,000 Genomes Project identified genetic variants present in as few as one percent of individuals in a population. By assembling a larger catalog of DNA sequence variation than had previously existed, the 1,000 Genomes Project paved the way for researchers to more precisely locate disease-related genetic variation passed from parent to child.