The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) recently launched a $37 million grant initiative to advance genomics research. This initiative consists of 11 Programs for Genomic Applications (PGAs) aimed at applying and expanding the data and technologies developed to map and sequence the human genome. The NHLBI considers this initiative one of its most ambitious to date, given that the goal is to identify the subsets of genes linked to heart, lung, blood, and sleep function, and to utilize the information to develop better methods for prevention, diagnosis, and therapy.
John Macauley, research scientist and director of the office of courses and conferences at the Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, Maine, sums up the importance of the PGAs: "Once we have the sequence, where do we go from there? The answer is applied genomics. It is where we need to go and [this type of initiative] is what we ...
