The 1000 Genomes Project, launched in January 2008, was an international research effort to establish by far the most detailed catalogue of
human genetic variation. Scientists planned to
sequence the
genomes of at least one thousand anonymous participants from a number of different ethnic groups within the following three years, using
newly developed technologies which were faster and less expensive. In 2010, the project finished its pilot phase, which was described in detail in a publication in the journal
Nature. In 2012, the sequencing of 1092 genomes was announced in a
Nature publication. In 2015, two papers in
Nature reported results and the completion of the project and opportunities for future research. Many rare variations, restricted to closely related groups, were identified, and eight structural-variation classes were analyzed.