By Roland Piquepaille
On April 15, the Human Genome Project's announced that it had completed the task of sequencing the collection of genes that make up the human code. In fact, only 99.9 per cent of the 3 billion pairs of DNA have been sequenced.How will we find the missing pieces? The Hindu reports that "the biotech community is increasingly turning to Pradeep Kumar Chatterjee, Head of Genomics and Bioinformatics at the Julius L. Chambers Biomedical/Biotechnology Research Institute (BBRI) of North Carolina Central University, U.S."
He has perfected a process called "deletion mapping technology" to map genes by checking both the sequence of every DNA pair as well as its position in the strand. It is slower but much more accurate than the rough-and-ready techniques adopted to get the bulk of the genome map right. But it is also a powerful tool for those who now want to use the genome map to analyze specific strands of DNA to attack individual diseases: what causes childhood leukaemia for example; or heart disease.
Researchers at a cardio-vascular centre in Houston, Texas, looking for the gene whose absence can lead to heart-valve defects in humans, told the North Carolina "News and Observer" last month: "Because of Dr. Chatterjee, we can do in a few months what would otherwise take two years."
So what's next?
What will the world's scientific community address next, with the human genome almost fully mapped? In an exclusive appraisal emailed to The Hindu, Dr. Chatterjee writes: "The focus is shifting to understanding the function of sequences in human and other genomes.... particularly, the function of non-coding sequences that are highly conserved between the genomes of mouse and man -- that is about 4.5 per cent of the human genome. Only 1.1 per cent of this comprises coding sequences for protein. The big question we have to answer is: What is the remaining 3.4 per cent doing?"
Source: Anand Parthasarathy, The Hindu, April 26, 2003
Famous quotes containing the words indian, scientist, tool, map, genes and/or demand:
“Thus you have an Indian availing himself cunningly of the advantages of civilization, without losing any of his woodcraft, but proving himself the more successful hunter for it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I’m a scientist also, Dr. Holden. I know the value of the cold light of reason. But I also know the deep shadows that light can cast. The shadows that can blind men to truth.”
—Charles Bennett (b. 1899)
“A broken altar, Lord, thy servant rears,
Made of a heart, and cemented with tears:
Whose parts are as thy hand did frame;
No workman’s tool hath touched the same.”
—George Herbert (1593–1633)
“If all the ways I have been along were marked on a map and joined up with a line, it might represent a minotaur.”
—Pablo Picasso (1881–1973)
“Whether you want it or not,
your genes have a political past,
your skin a political tone.
your eyes a political color.
...
you walk with political steps
on political ground.”
—Wislawa Szymborska (b. 1923)
“I demand that my books be judged with utmost severity, by knowledgeable people who know the rules of grammar and of logic, and who will seek beneath the footsteps of my commas the lice of my thought in the head of my style.”
—Louis Aragon (1897–1982)