A grant from the National Human Genome Research Institute of the National Institutes of Health went to eight different research groups using various techniques to analyze small portions of the human genome. Results from the work will guide future experiments involving the entire sequence.
Richard Myers, PhD, professor of genetics at the School of Medicine and leader of the Stanford team, said, "Now that we have the human sequence we want to try to be systematic about finding the functional parts of the human genome." He is working with Arend Sidow, PhD, assistant professor of pathology and of genetics, and Serafim Batzoglou, PhD, assistant professor of computer science, to compare human DNA sequences to similar sequences in other animals.
This comparison, with the help of high-powered computation, can highlight which regions of the genome play an important biological role. In addition, Myers' lab will analyze what functional role those sequences play.
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