Applied Biosystems, 454 Life Sciences and Illumina Join 1000 Genomes Project

Biotech Innovators Will Contribute to International Effort To Produce Most Detailed Map of Genetic Variation

13-Jun-2008

Leaders of the 1000 genomes Project announced that three firms that have pioneered development of new sequencing technologies have joined the international effort to build the most detailed map to date of human genetic variation as a tool for medical research. The new participants are: Applied Biosystems, an Applera Corporation business; 454 Life Sciences, a Roche company ; and Illumina Inc. in San Diego.

The 1000 Genomes Project, which was announced in January 2008, is an international research consortium that is creating a new map of the human genome that will provide a view of biomedically relevant DNA variations at a resolution unmatched by current resources. Organizations that have already committed major support to the project are: the Beijing Genomics Institute, Shenzhen, China; the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Hinxton, Cambridge, U.K.; and the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), part of the National Institutes of Health. The NHGRI-supported work is being done by the institute's Large-Scale Sequencing Network, which includes the Human Genome Sequencing Center at Baylor College of Medicine, Houston; the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, Mass.; and the Washington University Genome Sequencing Center at Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis.

The 1000 Genomes Project builds upon the International HapMap Project, which produced a comprehensive catalog of human genetic variation - variation that is organized into neighborhoods called haplotypes. The HapMap catalog laid the foundation for the recent explosion of genome-wide association studies that have identified more than 130 genetic variants linked to a wide range of common diseases, including type 2 diabetes, coronary artery disease, prostate and breast cancers, rheumatoid arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease and a number of mental illnesses.

The HapMap catalog, however, only identifies genetic variants that are present at a frequency of 5 percent or greater. The catalog produced by the 1000 Genomes Project will map many more details of the human genome and how it varies among individuals, identifying genetic variants that are present at a frequency of 1 percent across most of the genome and down to 0.5 percent or lower within genes. The 1000 Genomes Project's high-resolution catalog will serve to accelerate many future studies of people with specific illnesses.

https://www.analytica-world.com/en/news/83320/applied-biosystems-454-life-sciences-and-illumina-join-1000-genomes-project.html