Looking Deeper into the Human Genome

In what is being billed as a scientific reconnaissance mission, researchers in a new project of the US National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) are going to be examining not just genes and proteins but all parts of the human genome that are crucial to biologic function, identifying and precisely locating all functional elements in our DNA sequence.

This project, called the Encyclopedia of DNA Elements (ENCODE), will be carried out by an international consortium made up of scientists in government, industry, and academia. The first grants in the three year US$36 million project have already been announced by the NHGRI. In a pilot project, research groups will work cooperatively to test efficient, high-throughput methods for identifying, locating, and fully analyzing all the functional elements contained in a set of DNA target regions that covers about 30 megabases, or about 1%, of the human genome. If this effort is successful, the project will be expanded to cover the entire genome. Another component of the ENCODE project will be the comparison of genomic sequences from many different animals.

"The ultimate goal of the ENCODE project is to create a reference work that will help researchers fully utilize the human sequence to gain a deeper understanding of human biology, as well as to develop new strategies for preventing and treating disease,” said Elise A. Feingold, Ph.D., the NHGRI program director in charge of the ENCODE project. "By working together in a highly cooperative manner, we fully expect this consortium to lay the groundwork for a future, large-scale effort.”



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US National Human Genome Research Institute