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Biotech / Medical : Celera Genomics (CRA) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: gao seng who wrote (308)	5/8/2000 8:27:00 PM
From: allen menglin chen	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 746

I have added a few more while u r reading it :) Why your SI PM is disabled?! I'm waiting for your bio guru and best site list. U beat me on your diggings :) Now the genomic news flood gate is opened dailynews.yahoo.com Monday May 8 1:13 PM ET Scientists Complete Map of Second Human Chromosome By Patricia Reaney LONDON (Reuters) - Scientists announced Monday that they had deciphered the genetic code of chromosome 21 which will improve understanding of Down's Syndrome, Alzheimer's disease and a range of other disorders. Chromosome 21 is the smallest of the 23 pairs of human chromosomes, with an estimated 225 protein-coding genes, and only the second to be completely deciphered. A consortium of international scientists, led by German and Japanese researchers from the Institute for Molecular Biotechnology in Germany, and the RIKEN Genomic Sciences Center in Japan, mapped the sequence which is published in this week's edition of the science journal Nature. Speak your mind Discuss this story with other people. [Start a Conversation] (Requires Yahoo! Messenger) ``The complete sequence analysis of human chromosome 21 will have profound implications for understanding the pathogenesis of diseases and the development of new therapeutic approaches,'' the scientists said in the report. The genetic map will help scientists develop more precise diagnostic tests and new treatments for diseases linked to the chromosome, including a particular type of epilepsy, auto-immune diseases and an increased susceptibility to leukemia. ``The challenge now is to unravel the function of all the genes on chromosome 21,'' the scientists added. Human Gene Total Revised The small number of genes on the chromosome and the 545 active genes in chromosome 22, which was sequenced last year, have also led the scientists to revise the estimated total number of human genes to 40,000 from 70,000 to 100,000 genes. Up to a third of chromosome 21 contained no genes. Both chromosomes are small, but together they make up two to three percent of the human genome, the basic blueprint of life. Each chromosome is made up of a molecule of DNA in the shape of a double helix which is composed of four chemical bases represented by the letters A (adenine), T (thymine), G (guanine) and C (cytosine). The arrangement, or sequence, of the letters determines the cell's genetic code. The scientists mapped out the 33.5 million base pairs of chromosome 21. The human genome contains three billion base pairs of DNA. Step To New Strategy On Down's Syndrome The achievement is particularly significant for the study of Down's Syndrome, which affects one in 700 live births. The complex disorder is caused by an extra copy of the chromosome. ``These are the tools to design strategies to identify the culprits, the genes, which are responsible for the pathogenesis of the disease,'' Marie-Laure Yaspo, of the Max Planck Institute fur Molecular Genetics in Berlin who led one of the research groups, said in a telephone interview. ``I would call it a tool box, where we have everything we would need to design novel strategies. We have to design novel strategies because the problem of Down's Syndrome is not a mutation. It is too much of something -- that is one more chromosome,'' she added. In addition to Down's Syndrome, chromosome 21 is also linked to the early onset Alzheimer's disease, certain types of leukemia, a form of manic depression and congenital heart disease. Nobuyoski Shimizu and scientists at Keio University in Japan and Helmut Blocker and researchers at the Corporation for Biotechnological Research in Brunswick in Germany as well as Swiss, French, American and British scientists contributed to the research.

To: gao seng who wrote (308)	5/8/2000 8:32:00 PM
From: allen menglin chen	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 746

Now BBC is recycling DT's news w/ the "wrong" title -- the links below comes w/ 2 nice drawings. How can u have a "complete" gene map when the whole genomic map is not done yet?! And DT has done 60K genes, w/ 40+K still in progress. news.bbc.co.uk Complete human gene map claimed Raw data from chromosome 21 By BBC News Online science editor Dr David Whitehouse A "dark horse" private company in the US is claiming to have won the race to produce a complete gene map of humans. At the same time publicly-funded scientists in Germany and Japan have passed another milestone in decoding human chromosome 21. The private company Doubletwist is a relative newcomer in the genome race and claim to have obtained the first "working draft" of the entire human genome. They say they did this by analysing publicly-available data using Sun workstation computers. The company believes its rough draft comprises the 105,000 genes of the human genetic blueprint. Surprise entry "The Human Genome Project has done a tremendous job of providing the primary sequence of more than 80% of the genome to date. We have built upon this accomplishment by processing this data to reveal its most important information - the genes," said John Couch, Chairman and CEO of DoubleTwist. Doubletwist's entry into the genome race comes as a surprise to genetic onlookers as it was thought that the race to complete the human genome was between the privately-funded Celera Genomics corporation and the publicly-funded Human Genome Project (HGP). Three weeks ago, Celera's CEO Craig Venter announced that his company had obtained the entire gene sequence of a human but had not yet assembled it into the correct order. He added that it would only take them a few weeks to complete that task. Sequencing landmark The decoding of chromosome 21 is a significant achievement for the HGP. It will be published in the journal Nature. It comes as rumours circulate in the scientific community that an official announcement that the entire human genetic blueprint has been sequenced is just days away. The announcement could be made at an important gathering of genome scientists on Thursday at Cold Spring Harbour Laboratory, Long Island, US. Chromosome 21 is the smallest human chromosome comprising less than 1.5% of the entire human genetic code. Extra copies of the chromosome result in Down's Syndrome, the most frequent cause of mental retardation. It affects one in 700 births. The scientists say that chromosome 21 has 33,546,361 base pairs of DNA arranged into 127 genes. Search BBC News Online Advanced search options BBC ONE TV NEWS WORLD NEWS SUMMARY See also: 17 Apr 00 \| Sci/Tech Human genome: A private vs public battle 03 Dec 99 \| Sci/Tech Book of life: Chapter one 23 Nov 99 \| Sci/Tech Genome race hots up 14 Apr 00 \| Sci/Tech Human chromosome code obtained 10 Apr 00 \| Sci/Tech Caution urged over genome hype Internet links: German Human Genome Project Japan Human Genome Project Doubletwist Celera Genomics Nature The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites Links to other Sci/Tech stories are at the foot of the page.