It took 13 years and nearly $3 billion to read the entire human genome

The Human Genome Project, an international effort launched in 1990, produced a complete map of essentially all 3 billion DNA base pairs in the human genome by 2003 — two years ahead of schedule. It remains the largest collaborative biology project in history, and the resulting reference sequence still underpins modern genetic medicine. Sequencing a genome today takes about a day and costs a few hundred dollars.

— National Human Genome Research Institute, Human Genome Project — Completed 2003