Software Helps Researchers In Sorting Through The Human Genome

The Human Genome SIDEBAR : Selected Suppliers of Software for Gene Discovery and Analysis Genetics has been an informational science since the elucidation of DNA's structure. Today's researchers say the field shifted to a more computational mode in 1990-the year that research groups began mapping genes to specific chromosomal sites for the Human Genome Project. "That year was pivotal, because it was then that the need to sequence significant amounts of DNA became compelling," says Richard Gib

Written byRicki Lewis

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The Human Genome

SIDEBAR : Selected Suppliers of Software for Gene Discovery and Analysis

PACKAGE DEAL: Bio Image Corp.'s Sequence Assembly Manager and DNA Sequence Film Reader are offered together.

The pace of genome research is expected to increase as researchers devise shortcuts to direct sequencing (J.C. Venter et al., Nature, 381:364-6, 1996). This will result in a need for more tools to seek meaning in the reams of A, T, C, and G DNA bases coming from automated sequencers (H. Ahern, The Scientist, Oct. 16, 1995, page 18). The As, Ts, Cs, and Gs, in contiguous triplets, encode the amino acid sequences of proteins. Software assists researchers at all stages of gene discovery and analysis-pedigree charting; gene mapping; reading DNA sequences from electrophoresis gels and predicting encoded protein sequences; identifying primers for gene amplification; and searching among similar sequences in other species for homologies.

Several dozen investigators from all ...

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