In 1990, the National Institute for Health formally funded and launched the Human Genome Project. The mission was to map the human DNA sequence of approximately 3 billion base pairs (letters).  The budget allowed for $3 Billion and 15 years.  Because of the research and funding interest, it spurred commercial competition and the project roughly finished by 2000-2003 under budget and on time.  The return on investment has been calculated at “…140 [returned] to our economy [for] every dollar…”  

There are three intrinsic factors that allowed rapid and appropriate gene sequencing in the 1990’s. (a) There are 3 billion base pairs in the human genome, all comprised of a 4-letter alphabet.  Storing this information in bit codes means the entire human genome fits on a 780 MB compact disc.  (b) Every living cell contains an entire genome. Destroying one in the course of sequencing has no effect on the organism.  (c) Science fiction “Hulk” and “Spiderman” movies notwithstanding, a genome is inert in that it is directly unresponsive to any environmental stimuli. It is unchangeable within a generation. Sequencing one cell sequences all cells.

These factors allowed the genome to be divided using restriction endonucleases to cut the DNA into fragments and conquered using Polymerase Chain Reactions to amplify the DNA fragments for cleaner analysis.  The fragments are then re-combined into the original genome via overlapping sequence pattern detection methods such as BLAT or BLAST.

Applying and extending these research methods directly leds to: cancer risk analysis, hereditary disorder analysis, and potential DNA manipulation. Indirect benefits also included enhanced pattern matching and text mining research – since sequence fragment analysis and overlap detection on a 4-letter alphabet is not so different from document analysis and matching on a 26-letter alphabet – and massive and affordable parallel cloud-like computing. On the other hand, it also brought us suspension-of-disbelief-straining cloning in movies such as, “The Sixth Day.”  But even that movie brings up the point – even if genomic cloning can recreate the body, how does one insert anything meaningful of value in the intelligence?  That is where the brain comes in.

By 2014, The National Institute for Health hopes to fund and launch the Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Project by basing it off the successes of the Human Genome Project.   Details are scarce, but the funding level, goals, and design appear to be similar – that is, purposely vague yet ambitious and perhaps intended to spur commercial competition and the ensuing direct and indirect research advances.  Controversies aside both projects, the BRAIN project might well turn out differently where expected, yet similar where unexpected. 

There are three intrinsic factors that may dis-allow rapid and appropriate brain functional analysis in the 2010’s.  (a) At an estimated 500 trillion synapses and assuming unrealistically simplified Boolean values, the brain requires over 600,000 compact discs.  Higher estimates from newly discovered brain region connections or including more synaptic complexity may require many orders of magnitude more discs equivalent.  (b) Every living neuron and its relevant synapses is unique.  Destroying any single one during the course of study irrevocably alters the brain as a whole (c) Every living neuron is highly mutable and responsive to its environment.  One cannot assume analyzing one neuron meaningfully informs on any other.  Like the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, the act of observing a neuron in action may alter the neuron under observation.  If the Human Genome Project mapped mountains, then the BRAIN Project hopes to map sand dunes.  Mountains do not change on meaningful time scales; sand dunes do. Therefore, the BRAIN project is necessarily a more ambitious and complicated project for the 2010’s than the Human Genome Project was for the 1990’s.

On the other hand, the Human Genome project leveraged off of over 100 years of private and public research into genetics from Gregor Mendel to Oswald Avery to James Watson and Francis Crick and beyond.  At the conclusion of the Human Genome Project, society still has not cloned people a la “The Sixth Day.”  But the technologies for rapid gene sequencing, cancer screening, text mining, and massively parallel computation are available as by-products.  In the same manner, perhaps the BRAIN project mirrors a precursor to the Human Genome Project. Perhaps BRAIN XV in the 2090’s will use techniques that render the three dis-allowing factors of today into allowing factors for rapid and appropriate analysis.   Even then, at the conclusion of that future project, there may not be any useful Kurzweillian brain transference a la “The Sixth Day.” But maybe the technologies for low signal to noise processing, massive dynamic parallel computing, transient spatial-temporal pattern matching, executive decision-making support tools, and beyond could experience some significant advances.