posted on Apr, 21 2004 @ 02:42 AM
The BBC is reporting that an international group of 152 scientists has published a detailed map of over 21,000 human genes.
The work is seen as a major advance in the efforts to make sense of the genome, the DNA code that guides the building and maintenance of our
bodies.
Sequencing of the human genome was officially finished in 2003, but scientists still need to interpret this vast resource of raw information.
The H-Invitational Consortium's work should aid the investigation of disease
The consortium, led by Takashi Gojobori of the Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology in Japan, compiled the database of genes
characterised through the research so far.
It carried out an exhaustive analysis of 41,118 existing sets of complementary DNAs (cDNAs), synthetic molecules derived from RNA, which in turn
correspond to genes in the genome.
This allowed the team to validate 21,037 functioning genes and identify 5,155 new gene candidates.
Scientists decipher 21,000 genes