Hannah Rosen

What was its heyday?

What was the peak of its growth?

When people think of the federal government at its most ambitious, they often think of the Apollo program.

This is Eric Green.

Green's work is often referred to as the Human Genome Project.

The project's version of the moon landing happened in April 2003, with the first nearly complete sequence declared finished.

On March 17th, the Trump administration forced Green from his job.

The first of five NIH institute directors it removed.

A health and human services official told The Atlantic that, quote, "...under a new administration, we have the right to remove individuals who do not align with the agency's priorities."

To hear from more federal workers, check out Frank's article online.

It's called The Purged.

He talks to civil servants who worked on disaster relief, humanitarian aid at the IRS, the Centers for Disease Control.

So much knowledge and so much experience lost.

This episode of Radio Atlantic was produced by Kevin Townsend and Rosie Hughes.

It was edited by Claudina Bade and fact-checked by Genevieve Finn.

Rob Smerciak engineered and composed original music.

Claudina Bade is the executive producer of Audio at the Atlantic and Andrea Valdez is our managing editor.

Listeners, if you enjoy the show, you can support our work and the work of all Atlantic journalists when you subscribe to The Atlantic at theatlantic.com slash listener.

I'm Hannah Rosen.

Thank you for listening.