As the genomic revolution continued, however, attention increasingly turned to the .1 percent of the human genome that is not shared, and research has increasingly looked to racial (or Asian, European, or African “population”) differences as the basis for variation in that small portion of the genome (Abu El-Haj 2007; Duster 2003a; Frank 2007; Fullwiley 2007). Examples include haplotype mapping of the human genome (International HapMap Consortium 2003) and other work looking at the continental clustering of genetic variation in relation to biomedical research (see Risch et al. 2002), as well as racial ancestry testing (Bolnick et al. 2007). In keeping with the HGP’s emphasis on health, a major direction of this research is the search for genetic bases of differences in disease outcomes between racial groups.3 Such differences have been reported for a number of characteristics, including lung, breast, colorectal, and prostate cancers; heart attack; congestive heart failure; stroke; and diabetes (Chang 2006; Grady 2006; Haney 1995; Kolata 2002; Neergaard 1996; O’Neil 2004; Wade 2005, 2006).
