In 1972, Livermore was the first to use flow cytometry to sort chromosomes. By the end of the decade, researchers could sort human chromosomes, which are small and varied.

The capabilities in flow cytometry developed at Livermore, combined with worldwide developments in recombinant DNA technology, led in the 1980s to a Livermore-Los Alamos project to build human chromosome-specific DNA libraries and then to the Human Genome Project.