The goals of the Human Genome Project were to map, sequence, and identify every gene in the human genome, as well as to identify the base pairs that make up human DNA and conduct functional and physical studies of the genome.
This required determining the arrangement of adenine, cytosine, guanine, and thymine in each of the 23 pairs of human chromosomes along the DNA strands. Through the identification of certain gene functions in cellular processes, development, and illness, scientists aimed to acquire a deeper understanding of the molecular basis of human biology and pathology.