 The post-HGP phase is marked by a flourishing of different projects, closely connected in their origins to the HGP, but going beyond it in many different ways. This section discusses two such post-HGP projects, namely the International HapMap project and a new field of research called ‘metagenomics’.  These examples indicate some important directions in which the postgenomic era is heading and identify some, though certainly not all, of the key characteristics and issues that mark this new period.