The working drafts of the human genome, announced in February 2001, have clearly provided a breakthrough in biochemistry and molecular biology research. The scientific data also provide an opportunity to vary a typical approach to teaching. Advanced graduate students at our university can elect to take a course in molecular genetics. The human genome drafts and the initial publications generated by the drafts were used as the framework for a variation of this course in the fall of 2001. Instead of a traditional, linear lecture-driven course, this approach provided a more methods-driven focus to the topics considered. It also required the introduction of some recent historical facts to put the material into proper context. The bulk of the topics normally taught remained unchanged; however, their order of appearance was greatly modified. Nevertheless, the material remained coherent because of the constant tie-in with the genome data. Evaluation of student performance was challenging because of the variety of material presented. Web-based assignments proved useful as mechanisms to probe the level of student understanding as well as providing another means of imparting information. (Contains 4 tables 1 footnote.)