The Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory (MDIBL) in Salisbury Cove, Maine, has received a $3.75 million, five-year National Institutes of Health grant to develop a Comparative Toxicogenomics Database focusing on aquatic species. Slated to go online in 2006, it will be the first database in the world to provide genetic information on aquatic species to the international scientific community (See also, A.J.S. Rayl, "How to create a successful fish tale," The Scientist, 15[16]:1, Aug. 20, 2001). The primary goal of the project is to create a prototype database of cataloged information on aquatic species genes that are relevant to environmental toxicology and human health. "By comparing the sequence and function of genes between aquatic species and humans, this database will offer new insights and findings about how toxins [affect] human tissues," says Yale University hepatologist James Boyer, director of MDIBL's Center for Membrane Toxicity Studies and principal...
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