The Rat Genome Sequencing Consortium announced in September that it had reached a major milestone: the three billionth base pair. From February to September 2001, researchers from this public and private collaboration surged forward to collect the first genome's worth of Rat DNA data at an average pace of 15 million bases per day. Using both shotgun sequencing techniques and the clone-by-clone method, the group is surging to cutting the coverage time in half. Richard Gibbs, director of the Baylor College of Medicine Human Genome Sequencing Center, in Houston, which heads the project, says the rat's importance to pharmacological and genetic studies on cardiac diseases related to hypertension "will rocket the rat ahead as an experimental model for these disorders." A notable discovery thus far is that the rat appears to possess about 48,000 genes. Funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute and the National Human Genome Research Institute, the consortium includes Baylor, the Celera Genomics Group, the Genome Therapeutics Corp., the British Columbia Cancer Agency, The Institute for Genomic Research, the University of Utah, and the Medical College of Wisconsin. A draft sequence is expected by next year, but raw data are already available on the Internet (rgd.mcw.edu). Progress of this and other genome efforts can be found at www.ebi.ac.uk/genomes/mot.
NHGRI Funds new Phase in Genomics Research
The sequencing of the human genome has paved the way for many new areas of study. The National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) has awarded two grants of $15 million each to the University of Washington in Seattle to begin work on what it considers the next phase of its program: understanding how the human genome functions. The university will create two new centers devoted to genomic research with these grants; one, within the College of Engineering, will concentrate on developing technology to monitor the molecular activities of single cells or small populations of cells; the other center will focus on resequencing long segments of DNA from many individuals with an emphasis on fundamental cellular processes. The NHGRI made just three grants for its new Center of Excellence in Genomic Science program. The third grant went to Yale University. According to Maynard Olson, director of the University of Washington's Genomic Center, the university's head start in genomic research in the early 1990s gave them a significant advantage over institutions that have only recently launched initiatives in this field. "It takes years to build the relationships among faculty members that must underlie strong proposals for this type of research" says Olson. He asserts that the long-term initiatives put forth will determine the real progress of the genomic revolution. In the long run, this research looks to drastically reduce the cost to sequence a genome, allowing for it to become a routine part of one's medical record shows a great potential in diagnosing countless diseases.
