The order of the chemical units (bases) along a piece of DNA or RNA.
The chicken has joined humans, chimps, rats and mice as the latest animal to have its genetic code laid bare. Made up of around one billion DNA base-pairs (chemical 'letters'), the chicken genome is a third the size of our own. Researchers at the US National Human Genome Research Institute...
The US National Institutes of Health (NIH) is inviting proposals to develop new, cheap genome sequencing technologies, aimed at developing a '$1000 genome' by 2014. The entire human genome sequence, the first draft of which was published three years ago, cost an estimated $3 billion, with mammalian genome projects today...
An international consortium that aims to catalogue patterns of human genetic variation has published a detailed description of its approach, partly to ensure that all the scientists involved receive credit for their work. The 'HapMap' project, launched in October 2002, is looking at DNA samples from 270 people from around...
US scientists have unveiled the entire genetic code of our closest animal relative, the chimpanzee. Teams at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston and the Washington University School of Medicine took less than a year to churn through the three billion DNA base-pairs (chemical letters) that make up the...
UK scientists have finished an in-depth study of chromosome six, the seventh human chromosome to be analysed in detail. The team, from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Cambridge, say the chromosome is made up of nearly 167 million base-pairs - chemical 'letters' of DNA - which means that it accounts for...
Scientists unveiled a rough draft of the dog genome last week, data that will help identify the genes involved in canine disorders, as well as shedding light on human diseases such as cancer, epilepsy and narcolepsy. The dog DNA sequence, published in Science last week, is freely available, although it...
US and German scientists have published the entire genetic code of chromosome seven, the largest human chromosome to be fully sequenced so far. It is made up of 153 million letters of DNA code (base-pairs), and contains at least 1,150 genes that specify proteins. The researchers say that they include...
A new report concludes that that the marketing of pharmacogenetic tests - matching medicines to a person's genetic make-up - may be moving faster than the underlying science. The findings, entitled 'My very own medicine: What must I know?' were published recently by the Department of Public Health and Primary Care at...
Scientists have unveiled a detailed analysis of the human Y chromosome, the genetic material that contains the 'male' switch. When flipped on, this switch (a gene called SRY) makes an early embryo develop into a baby boy. For many years, this was thought to be the Y chromosome's one important...
The winner of the sweepstake that asked genetics researchers to place bets on how many genes would be found in the final draft of the human genome sequence was announced last week. The most recent estimate, around 24,800 genes, is much lower than the 50-100,000 predicted some years ago...
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