NHGRI-Related News Archive

• 2011
• 2010
• 2009
• 2008
• 2007
• 2006
• 2005

2011

• November 2, 2011: KU's Institute for Advancing Medical Innovation, The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society and NIH begin groundbreaking clinical trial for leukemia patients
  From the University of Kansas Medical Center: As part of an aggressive effort to speed delivery of treatments to patients by finding new uses for approved drugs, researchers at the University of Kansas Medical Center have begun a clinical trial targeting the most common form of adult leukemia with a drug first approved to treat arthritis more than 25 years ago. The trial is one key piece of a larger collaboration between KU, The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS) and the National Institutes of Health's (NIH) Therapeutics for Rare and Neglected Diseases Program (TRND), administered by NHGRI through the National Center of Translational Therapeutics.
  
  
• October 31, 2011: $10 Million Archon Genomics X PRIZE to Sequence 100 Centenarians' DNA and Announces Medco as Presenting Sponsor
  From the X-PRIZE Foundation: The X PRIZE Foundation has announced a number of major changes to its Archon Genomics X PRIZE, the $10 million competition designed to drive breakthroughs in the future of predictive and personalized medicine to make significant advances in human genome sequencing. Medco Health Solutions, Inc., a leading pharmacy benefit manager, has joined as the competition's Presenting Sponsor. The X PRIZE Foundation and Medco stated the competing teams will sequence 100 genomes of centenarians. The National Human Genome Research Institute is a supporting organization of the X PRIZE Foundation.
  
  
• October 26, 2011: NIH study shows benefits, limits of therapy for rare inflammatory syndrome
  From the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases: A study shows that the medication etanercept reduces the frequency and severity of symptoms of TNF receptor-associated periodic syndrome (TRAPS), a rare inherited condition characterized by recurrent fevers, abdominal pain and skin rashes. The study, published in Arthritis & Rheumatism, also points out the need for the development of additional therapies to more thoroughly ease symptoms and prevent long-term complications of the disease. The study was released by the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS) and conceived in 2001 by Keith Hull, M.D., Ph.D., then a rheumatology fellow in the NIAMS under the supervision of Daniel Kastner, M.D, Ph.D., one of the discoverers of the TNF receptor mutations in TRAPS, and now the scientific director of the National Human Genome Research Institute.
  
  
• October 12, 2011: Dark matter of the genome revealed through analysis of 29 mammals
  From the Broad Institute: An international team of researchers has discovered the vast majority of the so-called "dark matter" in the human genome, by means of a sweeping comparison of 29 mammalian genomes. The team, led by scientists from the Broad Institute, has pinpointed the parts of the human genome that control when and where genes are turned on. This map is a critical step in interpreting the thousands of genetic changes that have been linked to human disease. Their findings appear online October 12 in the journal Nature. The work was funded in part by the National Human Genome Research Institute.
  
  
• August 31, 2011: First lizard genome sequenced
  From the Broad Institute: The green anole lizard is an agile and active creature, and so are elements of its genome. This genomic agility and other new clues have emerged from the full sequencing of the lizard's genome and may offer insights into how the genomes of humans, mammals, and their reptilian counterparts have evolved since mammals and reptiles parted ways 320 million years ago. The researchers who completed this sequencing project reported their findings August 31 online in the journal Nature. The work was funded in part by the National Human Genome Research Institute.
  
  
• August 26, 2011: New roles emerge for non-coding RNAs in directing embryonic development
  From the Broad Institute: Scientists at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard have discovered that a mysterious class of large RNAs plays a central role in embryonic development, contrary to the dogma that proteins alone are the master regulators of this process. The research, published online August 28 in the journal Nature, reveals that these RNAs orchestrate the fate of embryonic stem (ES) cells by keeping them in their fledgling state or directing them along the path to cell specialization. The work was funded in part by the National Human Genome Research Institute.
  
  
• August 22, 2011: Kangaroo genome provides insights into mammalian biology
  From the Baylor College of Medicine: Sequencing of the first kangaroo — the tammar wallaby — genome provides new information about mammalian evolution, as well as the biology of traits such as hopping and early development, that share genes with humans, reports a consortium of researchers that includes Australian researchers and the Baylor College of Medicine Human Genome Sequencing Center in the journal Genome Biology. Funding was provided, in part, by the National Human Genome Research Institute.
  
  
• August 11, 2011: NIH-Led Team Maps Route for Eliciting HIV Neutralizing Antibodies
  From the Vaccine Research Center: Researchers have traced in detail how certain powerful HIV neutralizing antibodies evolve, a finding that generates vital clues to guide the design of a preventive HIV vaccine, according to a study appearing in Science Express. The discoveries were made by a team led by the Vaccine Research Center (VRC) at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health. NHGRI scientists from the NIH Intramural Sequencing Center (NISC) collaborated with the Vaccine Research Center researchers on this study.
  
  
• August 9, 2011: New study finds blood test can identify fetal sex as early as 7 weeks gestation
  From the Johns Hopkins University Genetic & Public Policy Center: Fetal sex can be determined reliably with a non-invasive genetic test as early as seven weeks into a pregnancy, according to a new meta-analysis published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The results of the NIH-funded analysis have important implications for early diagnosis of genetic diseases linked to genes on the X chromosome, since those diseases only affect males. The study was supported by the National Human Genome Research Institute.
  
  
• May 23, 2011: Human Microbiome Project Data Available to Research Community
  From the University of Maryland School of Medicine: The Human Microbiome Project (HMP), funded through the National Institutes of Health Common Fund's Roadmap for Medical Research, is now releasing reads and assembled sequences from whole metagenome shotgun sequencing of 690 microbiomes and about 72 million reads from targeted 16S sequencing of 5034 microbiomes from healthy human subjects for use by the scientific community via the HMP Data Analysis and Coordination Center, which is located at the Institute for Genome Sciences (IGS) at the University of Maryland School of Medicine.
  
  
• May 19, 2011: New Zealand Pharmaceuticals Announces Collaboration with the NHGRI to Develop DEX-M74 as a Treatment for Hereditary Inclusion Body Myopathy (HIBM)
  From New Zealand Pharmaceuticals Ltd: New Zealand Pharmaceuticals Ltd (NZP), announced today that it has entered into a collaboration with the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), part of the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) located in Bethesda, Md., to take the investigational Hereditary Inclusion Body Myopathy (HIBM) therapeutic, DEX-M74, through pre-clinical development followed by initial clinical trials with HIBM patients lead by NHGRI's William Gahl M.D., Ph.D. Two other NIH groups will contribute to the research, including the NIH Therapeutics for Rare and Neglected Diseases (TRND) program and the NIH Clinical Center.
  
  
• April 20, 2011: Decoding cancer patients' genomes is powerful diagnostic tool
  From Washington University in St. Louis: Two new studies highlight the power of sequencing cancer patients' genomes as a diagnostic tool, helping doctors decide the best course of treatment and researchers identify new cancer susceptibility mutations that can be passed from parent to child. Both studies, by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis — and supported in part by NHGRI — are reported April 20 in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
  
  
• April 8, 2011: Genetic variants associated with caffeine intake identified
  From Brigham and Women's Hospital:Two genes in which variation affects intake of caffeine, the most widely consumed stimulant in the world, have been discovered. A team of investigators, including Daniel Chasman from the Division of Preventive Medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital, and researchers from the National Cancer Institute, Harvard School of Public Health and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill examined genetic variation across the entire genome of more than 47,000 individuals from the Women's Genome Health Study. The findings appear in the April 7, 2011 issue of the open-access journal PLoS Genetics. NHGRI helped fund the research.
  
  
• April 3, 2011: Penn-Led Alzheimer's Disease Consortium Identifies Four New Genes for Alzheimer's Disease Risk
  From the University of Pennsylvania: In the largest study of its kind, researchers from a consortium led by the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, the University of Miami, and the Boston University School of Medicine, identified four new genes linked to Alzheimer's disease. Each gene individually adds to the risk of having this common form of dementia later in life. These new genes offer a portal into what causes Alzheimer's disease and is a major advance in the field. The research was funded in part by NHGRI. The study is published in the April 3, 2011 advanced online publication of Nature Genetics.
  
  
• March 23, 2011: Epigenomic findings illuminate veiled variants
  From the Broad Institute: Using a new mapping strategy, a collaborative team led by researchers at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), and MIT has begun to assign meaning to the regions beyond our genes and has revealed how minute changes in these regions might be connected to common diseases. The researchers' findings appear in the March 23 advance online issue of Nature. The research was supported by the National Human Genome Research Institute under an ENCODE grant.
  
  
• February 22, 2011: Trichinosis parasite gets DNA decoded
  From the Washington University in St. Louis: Scientists have decoded the DNA of the parasitic worm that causes trichinosis, a disease linked to eating raw or undercooked pork or carnivorous wild game animals, such as bear and walrus.After analyzing the genome, investigators at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and their collaborators report they have identified unique features of the parasite, Trichinella spiralis, which provide potential targets for new drugs to fight the illness. The research is published online Feb. 20 in Nature Genetics.

Top of page

2010

• December 22, 2010: Learning to Read the Genome
  From the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory: Genetic information carried by DNA and RNA operates together with the patterns and physical organization of chromosomes to produce a working organism. Major advances in understanding these complex relationships are published this week by the "model organism Encyclopedia of DNA Elements" (modENCODE) project, funded by the National Institutes of Health's National Human Genome Research Institute. These new insights into reading the genome apply not only to the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster and the roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans, modENCODE's two model organisms, but will apply to human beings and many other organisms as well.
  
  
• December 20, 2010: New Tools Available for Genetics Research
  From the Research Triangle Park, N.C.: RTI International releases a new version of a free online "toolkit" to help genetics researchers consistently measure and report physical traits and environmental exposures.The toolkit, called PhenX (a combination of Phenotype and eXposures), provides nearly 300 standard measures and protocols across 21 different research areas. These measures are intended for use in genome wide association and other large-scale research studies. The toolkit is funded by the National Human Genome Research Institute.
  
  
• November 30, 2010: Genome 10K project announces first 101 species for genome sequencing
  From the University of California Santa Cruz: The Genome 10K Community of Scientists and BGI (formerly the Beijing Genomics Institute) of Shenzhen, China, announce a plan to sequence the genomes of 101 vertebrate species within the next two years, the first of an eventual 10,000 species to be sequenced by the Genome 10K Project.The Genome 10K Project (G10K) is an international effort to gather specimens of thousands of animals from zoos, museums, and university collections throughout the world, and then sequence the genome of each species to reveal its complete genetic heritage.
  
  
• November 17, 2010: AesRx announces collaboration with NIH to develop Aes-103 for sickle cell disease
  From AesRx, LLC: AesRx, LLC, announces that it has entered into a collaboration with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to take AesRx's investigational sickle cell therapeutic, Aes-103, through pre-clinical development and initial clinical trials, including two trials in sickle cell patients. Several NIH components will contribute to the research, including the NIH Therapeutics for Rare and Neglected Diseases (TRND) program, an affiliated program with the National Human Genome Research Institute; the NIH Clinical Center; and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI).
  
  
• November 5, 2010: President honors outstanding early-career scientists
  From the White House: President Obama names 85 researchers as recipients of the Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers, the highest honor bestowed by the United States government on science and engineering professionals in the early stages of their independent research careers. The Presidential early career awards embody the high priority the Obama Administration places on producing outstanding scientists and engineers to advance the Nation's goals, tackle grand challenges, and contribute to the American economy. NHGRI's Charles P. Venditti, M.D., Ph.D. was honored.
  
  
• October 22, 2010: Malarial mosquitoes are evolving into new species, say Imperial researchers
  From Imperial College London: Two strains of the type of mosquito responsible for the majority of malaria transmission in Africa have evolved such substantial genetic differences that they are becoming different species, according to researchers behind two new studies published today in the journal Science. NHGRI helped fund the research.
  
  
• October 10, 2010: Apple-shaped or pear-shaped, it's partly down to your genes
  From Oxford University: An international team of scientists, including researchers from NHGRI's Genome Technology Branch, have identified 13 regions of genetic variation associated with body fat distribution, and 18 regions of genetic variation associated with increased susceptibility to obesity. The consortium describes their findings in the Oct. 10, 2010 online publication of the journal Nature Genetics.
  
  
• September 27, 2010: Nanopore system measures and controls DNA replication
  From the University of California at Santa Cruz: Research by Mark Akeson, professor and chair of biomolecular engineering, and his colleagues in the Baskin School of Engineering at UC Santa Cruz shows a new method of enzyme-controlled movement of a single strand of DNA through a protein nanopore. The findings, published in Nature Nanotechnology, represent a key step toward nanopore sequencing of DNA strands.
  
  
• September 15, 2010: Johns Hopkins Scientists Find Genes Related to Body Mass
  From Johns Hopkins Medicine: Johns Hopkins scientists who specialize in unconventional hunts for genetic information outside nuclear DNA sequences have bagged a weighty quarry — 13 genes linked to human body mass. The experiments screened the so-called epigenome for key information that cells remember other than the DNA code itself and may have serious implications for preventing and treating obesity.
  
  
• September 9, 2010: Graphene may hold key to speeding up DNA sequencing
  From Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences: In a paper published as the cover story of the September 9, 2010 Nature, researchers from Harvard University and MIT have demonstrated that graphene, a surprisingly robust planar sheet of carbon just one-atom thick, can act as an artificial membrane separating two liquid reservoirs.
  
  
• September 7, 2010: NIH expands network focused on how genes affect drug responses
  From the National Institutes of Health: The National Institutes of Health plans to spend $161.3 million over the next five years to expand the Pharmacogenomics Research Network (PGRN), a nationwide collaborative of scientists focused on understanding how genes affect a person's response to medicines.
  
  
• August 4, 2010: NIH Genomic Mapping Study Finds Largest Set of Genes Related to Major Risk Factor for Heart Disease
  From the National Institutes of Health: Scanning the genomes of more than 100,000 people from all over the world, scientists report the largest set of genes discovered underlying high cholesterol and high triglycerides — the major risk factors for coronary heart disease, the nation's number one killer. Taken together, the gene variants explain between a quarter and a third of the inherited portions of cholesterol and triglyceride measured in the blood. The research, representing scientists from 17 countries and funded in part by NHGRI, appears in two papers in the Aug. 5 issue of Nature.
  
  
• July 19, 2010: EPA and Other Federal Agencies Collaborate to Improve Chemical Screening
  From the Environmental Protection Agency: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences National Toxicology Program and the National Institute of Health Chemical Genomics Center - an NHGRI affiliated center - welcome the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to the Tox21 collaboration, of which they are all members. The Tox21 collaboration merges federal agency resources to develop ways to more effectively predict how chemicals will affect human health and the environment.
  
  
• June 21, 2010: 1000 Genomes Project Releases Data from Pilot Projects on Path to Providing Database for 2,500 Human Genomes
  From The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute: The 1000 Genomes Project, an international public-private consortium to build the most detailed map of human genetic variation to date, announces the completion of three pilot projects and the deposition of the final resulting data in freely available public databases for use by the research community. In addition, work has begun on the full-scale effort to build a public database containing information from the genomes of 2,500 people from 27 populations around the world. NHGRI provided major funding to the project.
  
  
• May 31, 2010: Powerful Genome Barcoding System Reveals Large-scale Variation in Human DNA
  From the University of Wisconsin-Madison: Variation on the order of thousands to hundreds of thousands of DNA's smallest pieces — large swaths varying in length or location or even showing up in reverse order — appeared 4,205 times in a comparison of DNA from just four people, according to a study published May 31 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Those structural differences popped into clear view through computer analysis of more than 500 linear feet of DNA molecules analyzed by the powerful genome mapping system developed at UW-Madison. NHGRI helped fund the study.
  
  
• May 6, 2010: The Neanderthal in Us
  From The Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology: The first genome sequence from an extinct human relative is now available. Together with an international research team, researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig present an initial draft of the genome sequence of the Neandertal, a human form which died out some 30,000 years ago. Initial analyses of four billion base pairs of Neandertal DNA indicate that Neandertals left their mark in the genomes of some modern humans.
  
  
• May 6, 2010: Neanderthal Genome Yields Insights Into Human Evolution and Evidence of Interbreeding
  From The University of California, Santa Cruz: After extracting ancient DNA from the 40,000-year-old bones of Neanderthals, scientists have obtained a draft sequence of the Neanderthal genome, yielding important new insights into the evolution of modern humans. Among the findings, published in the May 7 issue of Science, is evidence that shortly after early modern humans migrated out of Africa, some of them interbred with Neanderthals, leaving bits of Neanderthal DNA sequences scattered through the genomes of present-day non-Africans.
  
  
• May 3, 2010: Study Provides New Leads into Genetics of Cleft Lip and/or Palate
  From The National Institutes of Health: A consortium of scientists - including researchers from NHGRI - report identifying two human genes that, when inherited in a slightly altered form, may play a role in causing cleft lip and/or palate (roof of the mouth), one of the world's most common congenital malformations. The finding, published online by the journal Nature Genetics, is unique in the study of congenital malformations because of how the discoveries were made. They come from the largest genome-wide association, or GWA, study to date on cleft lip and/or palate.
  
  
• April 29, 2010: Scientists Report First Genome Sequence of Frog
  From The University of California, Berkeley: A team of scientists led by the Department of Energy's Joint Genome Institute and the University of California, Berkeley, has published the first genome sequence of an amphibian, the African clawed frog Xenopus tropicalis, filling in a major gap among the vertebrates sequenced to date. The high-quality draft sequence of the genome of X. tropicalis, often called the Western clawed frog, will also aid researchers who now use the frog's more popular cousin, Xenopus laevis, to study embryo development and cell biology. NHGRI helped fund the research.
  
  
• April 23, 2010: Community Genetics Forum To Bring Ethnic Groups, U of U, NIH Experts Together
  From The University of Utah Health Center: Hundreds of members from the state's diverse ethnic groups will meet with University of Utah and National Institutes of Health (NIH) genetics and disease experts for a Community Genetics and Health Forum on April 30 and May 1. Sponsored by the NIH's National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), the forum brings together members of Utah's African American, African refugee, Chinese, Hispanic/Latino, Native American, and Tongan communities to discuss the relationship between genetics and three chronic diseases of pressing importance to those ethnic populations: heart disease, cancer and diabetes.
  
  
• April 16, 2010: Molecular Discovery Points to New Therapies for Brain Tumors
  From The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center: A class of brain tumor that tends to emerge in younger patients but is less aggressive than others can be identified by examining DNA methylation of a specific set of genes, scientists at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center and colleagues with The Cancer Genome Atlas report online at Cancer Cell. Scientists from The Cancer Genome Atlas, a joint initiative of the National Cancer Institute and the National Human Genome Research Institute to increase understanding of cancer genetics, took part in the research.
  
  
• April 15, 2010: International Cancer Genome Consortium plans to sequence 25,000 cancer genomes
  From The International Cancer Genome Consortium: In a paper published in the journal Nature, the International Cancer Genome Consortium sets out its bold plan to decode the genomes from 25,000 cancer samples and create a resource of freely available data that will help cancer researchers around the world. The effort includes work being done by The Cancer Genome Atlas, which is jointly funded by the National Cancer Institute and NHGRI.
  
  
• April 14, 2010: Decoding tumor genomes reveals clues to spread of deadly breast cancer that affects younger women, African-Americans
  From Washington University in St. Louis: Using powerful DNA sequencing technology to decode the genomes of cancer patients, scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis get an unprecedented look at the genetic basis of a highly lethal breast cancer that disproportionately affects younger women and those who are African-American. The research was funded in part by the National Human Genome Research Institute.
  
  
• March 18, 2010: NIH Announces Genetic Testing Registry
  From the National Institutes of Health: The National Institutes of Health announces that it is creating a public database that researchers, consumers, health care providers, and others can search for information submitted voluntarily by genetic test providers. The Genetic Testing Registry (GTR) aims to enhance access to information about the availability, validity and usefulness of genetic tests.
  
  
• March 18, 2010: Genome of the Fresh Water Polyp Hydra Sequenced
  From Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU) in Munich : The genome of the fresh water polyp Hydra, which has played a key role as a model organism in modern evolutionary and developmental biology, has been sequenced by an international consortium of American, German, Austrian and Japanese scientists. The genome sequence provides a glimpse into the common evolutionary history of animals and humans. Scientists at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU) in Munich, and universities in Kiel, Heidelberg, Vienna and Innsbruck contributed to the project, which was published online in Nature on March 14, 2010. NHGRI helped fund the research.
  
  
• March 17, 2010: Dogs Likely Originated in the Middle East, New Genetic Data Indicate
  From the University of California at Los Angeles: Dogs likely originated in the Middle East, not Asia or Europe, according to a new genetic analysis by an international team of scientists led by UCLA biologists. The research, funded by the National Science Foundation and the Searle Scholars Program, appeared March 17 in the advance online edition of the journal Nature. Among the co-authors on the Nature paper are a group of researchers from the National Human Genome Research Institute led by Senior Investigator Elaine Ostrander, Ph.D.
  
  
• February 25, 2010: Whole Genome Analysis Solves Medical Mystery in One Family, Comes Nearer to Routine Use
  From the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke: For the first time, researchers use whole genome sequencing to achieve a molecular diagnosis in a family with a genetic disorder. The results suggest that in the near future, genome sequencing could become a routine part of medical care, both to diagnose rare disorders and help estimate the risk of common disorders. The effort was led by investigators at Baylor College of Medicine Houston, Texas, and funded in part by NHGRI.
  
  
• February 25, 2010: Emerging Science, Tech Advances Highlight New NIH Common Fund Programs
  From the National Institutes of Health: Programs to create a new center for the study of stem cells and to increase capacity to deal with global health issues were among seven scientific initiatives announced today by NIH Director Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D. The seven research programs are supported through the NIH Common Fund, which encourages collaborative research programs across the NIH institutes and centers, or ICs, to accomplish work that no single IC could do alone. The programs are all scheduled to begin during fiscal year 2010. NHGRI will be co-administering some of the projects.
  
  
• February 24, 2010: Surgeon General with Microsoft HealthVault Expands Consumer Benefits for the My Family Health Portrait Offering
  From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services: The U.S. Surgeon General Regina M. Benjamin announce a collaboration with Microsoft HealthVault that will provide new features and expand access to My Family Health Portrait, a free Internet-based tool for organizing family health history. The National Human Genome Research Institute created the original version of the tool and was among the federal agencies that supported its upgrade.
  
  
• February 23, 2010: Aphid's Genome Reflects Its Reproductive, Symbiotic Lifestyle
  From Baylor College of Medicine: The genome of the pea aphid, has been sequenced by the International Aphid Genomics Consortium. Dr. Stephen Richards, assistant professor in the Baylor College of Medicine Human Genome Sequencing Center is the leader of the sequencing effort. The consortium released the 464 megabase draft genome of the pea aphid (Acyrthosiphon pisum) in the current issue of PLoS Biology. The aphid sequencing was funded by NHGRI.
  
  
• February 21, 2010: From Uncharted Region of Human Genome, Clues Emerge About Origins of Coronary Artery Disease
  From the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory: Researchers have figured out how a mysterious DNA region previously tied to heart disease may exert its effect, opening the door to new prevention and treatment strategies. The study, partly funded by NIH's National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute and National Human Genome Research Institute, appeared in the advance online edition of Nature on Feb. 21, 2010.
  
  
• February 18, 2010: Scientists Map Genetic Regulatory Elements for the Heart
  From the National Institutes of Health: Scientists devise a new computational model that can be used to reveal genetic regulatory elements responsible for development of the human heart and maintenance of its function. The research, conducted by scientists at the National Institutes of Health's National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) and the University of Chicago, is published in the March 2010 issue of Genome Research and is available online. The University of Chicago research was co-funded by NHLBI and the National Human Genome Research Institute at NIH.
  
  
• February 2, 2010: Scientists Map Out Regulatory Regions of Genome, Hot Spots for Diabetes Genes
  From the University of North Carolina School of Medicine: Together with colleagues in Barcelona, researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have generated a complete map of the areas of the genome that control which genes are "turned on" or "off." The research, published online Jan. 31, 2010, in the journal Nature Genetics, presents the first high-resolution atlas of these regulatory elements in the most studied cell type for treatment and prevention of type II diabetes. The discovery, made in pancreatic islet cells, opens new avenues for understanding the genetic basis of type 2 diabetes and other common illnesses. The research was funded by NHGRI as part of its ENCODE project.
  
  
• February 1, 2010: Benefits Outweigh Risks Associated with Newborn Screening for Disorder
  From the University of Michigan: Newborn screening for a metabolic disorder could lead to false positives — adding stress to parents, costing money and possibly subjecting a baby to unnecessary follow-up treatment and dietary restrictions. But the benefits of diagnosing these children early and preventing the risk of mental retardation, disability or death outweigh the costs of a false positive, according to new U-M research published in the February issue of the journal Pediatrics. Funding for this study was provided by the National Human Genome Research Institute, Division of Ethical, Legal and Social Implications.
  
  
• January 20, 2010: New Gene Discovered for Recessive Form of Brittle Bone Disease
  From the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development: Researchers at the National Institutes of Health and other institutions discover the third in a sequence of genes that accounts for previously unexplained forms of osteogenesis imperfecta (OI), a genetic condition that weakens bones, results in frequent fractures and is sometimes fatal. Researchers at the National Human Genome Research Institute also took part in the study.
  
  
• January 15, 2010: Parasitic Wasps' Newly Sequenced Genomes Reveal New Avenues for Pest Control, Provides Insights into Evolution, Genetics
  From the University of Rochester: Parasitic wasps kill pest insects, but their existence is largely unknown to the public. Now, scientists led by John H. Werren, professor of biology at the University of Rochester, and Stephen Richards at the Genome Sequencing Center at the Baylor College of Medicine have sequenced the genomes of three parasitoid wasp species, revealing many features that could be useful to pest control and medicine, and to enhance our understanding of genetics and evolution. NHGRI helped fund the research. The study appears in the January 15 issue of Science.
  
  
• January 13, 2010: Chimp and Human Y Chromosomes Evolving Faster Than Expected
  From the Massachusetts Institute of Technology: By conducting the first comprehensive interspecies comparison of Y chromosomes, Whitehead Institute researchers find considerable differences in the genetic sequences of the human and chimpanzee Ys — an indication that these chromosomes have evolved more quickly than the rest of their respective genomes over the 6 million years since they emerged from a common ancestor. The findings are published online this week in the journal Nature. NHGRI provided support for this work.
  
  
• January 7, 2010: Gene Mutations Reveal Potential New Targets for Treating a Type of Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma
  From the National Cancer Institute: Researchers discover genetic mutations that may contribute to the development of an aggressive form of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. These findings provide insight into a mechanism that cancer cells may use to survive, thus identifying potential new targets for treatment of the disease. The study conducted by researchers at the National Cancer Institute (NCI), the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and the National Human Genome Research Institute, components of the National Institutes of Health, and colleagues appeared Jan. 7, 2010, in Nature.

Top of page

2009

• December 23, 2009: A Novel Gene Found for Childhood-Onset Asthma; Gene's Role in Immune System May Suggest New Treatments
  From the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia: Pediatric researchers identify a novel gene involved in childhood asthma, in one of the largest gene studies to date of the common respiratory disease. Because the gene, called DENND1B, affects cells and signaling molecules thought to be instrumental in the immune system overreaction that occurs in asthma, the discovery may have singled out an important target for new treatments. The National Human Genome Research Institute supported the research.
  
  
• December 21, 2009: New Nanopore Technique Facilitates Faster, Cheaper Genome Analyses
  From Boston University: Researchers devise a method that advances the prospects for efficiently analyzing DNA samples without amplification. In a study published in the Dec. 20 online edition of Nature Nanotechnology, Associate Professor Amit Meller (BME, Physics), BME postdoctoral fellow Meni Wanunu, BU physics student Will Morrison and collaborators at New York University and Bar-Ilan University demonstrated a method to tune solid-state nanopores — tiny, nearly cylindrical, silicon nitride sensors that electronically detect DNA molecules as they pass through the pore — to require far fewer DNA molecules than ever before. The research was funded in part by NHGRI.
  
  
• December 11, 2009: Princeton Scientists Find Way to Catalog All That Goes Wrong in a Cancer Cell
  From Princeton University: A team of Princeton University scientists produce a systematic listing of the ways a particular cancerous cell has "gone wrong," giving researchers a powerful tool that eventually could make possible new, more targeted therapies for patients. The research was funded by the National Human Genome Research Institute.
  
  
• November 30, 2009: Researchers Identify Proteins in Lung Cancer Cells That May Provide Potential Drug Targets
  From Boston University School of Medicine: Researchers from Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) and the Boston University Biomedical Engineering Department identify a number of proteins whose activation allows them to distinguish between cancer and normal cells with almost 97 percent accuracy. In addition, the BU researchers have developed a new computational strategy to analyze this data and specifically identify key biological pathways (molecular circuits) that are active in cancer and "dormant" in normal cells. NHGRI helped fund the research.
  
  
• November 24, 2009: For the First Time, Scientists Discover Causative Gene of a Rare Disorder by Sequencing All Protein-Coding Regions of the Genome
  From the University of Washington: For the first time, scientists use a method called exome sequencing to quickly discover a previously unknown gene responsible for a mendelian disorder. Mendelian disorders, such as cystic fibrosis and sickle cell disease, are the result of one or more mutations in a single gene, typically a gene that makes a protein. All of the regions that code for proteins taken together are called the exome. The study, "Exome sequencing identifies the cause of a mendelian disorder," was led by University of Washington (UW) researchers and published Nov. 13, in Nature Genetics. The research was funded in part by NHGRI.
  
  
• November 4, 2009: Scientists Propose a "Genome Zoo" of 10,000 Vertebrate Species
  From the University of California at Santa Cruz: In the most comprehensive study of animal evolution ever attempted, an international consortium of scientists plans to assemble a genomic zoo — a collection of DNA sequences for 10,000 vertebrate species, approximately one for every vertebrate genus. Using a workshop to organize their ideas, the group proposed The 10K Genomes Project in a paper published Nov. 5, 2009 in the Journal of Heredity. Co-authors include NHGRI's Eric Green M.D., Ph.D. and Adam Felsenfeld, Ph.D.
  
  
• October 29, 2009: Trinity College Researchers in collaboration with the US National Institutes of Health Chemical Genomics Center Create New Database of Drug-Metabolising Enzymes
  From Trinity College Dublin: In an advance that should help speed drug discovery, researchers from Trinity College Dublin and the National Institutes of Health Chemical Genomics Center (NCGC) have generated the most comprehensive analysis to date of the CYP activity of thousands of drugs and possible drug candidates. Their study is published in the November 2009 issue of Nature Biotechnology.
  
  
• October 21, 2009: Gene Duplication Identified in an Uncommon Form of Bone Cancer
  From the National Cancer Institute: Scientists discover that a familial form of a rare bone cancer called chordoma is explained not by typical types of changes or mutations in the sequence of DNA in a gene, but rather by the presence of a second copy of an entire gene. The findings appeared online Oct. 4, 2009, in Nature Genetics and was done by researchers at the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health, and their colleagues. NHGRI researcher David Ng co-authored the study.
  
  

Related NCI Cancer Bulletin Special Report

• Duplicated Gene May Explain Rare Cancer in Some Families [cancer.gov]
  
  
• October 20, 2009: Scientists Decipher the 3-D Structure of the Human Genome
  From Harvard University: Scientists decipher the three-dimensional structure of the human genome, paving the way for new insights into genomic function and expanding our understanding of how cellular DNA folds at scales that dwarf the double helix. A paper, featured this week on the cover of the journal Science, they describe a new technology called Hi-C and apply it to answer the thorny question of how each of our cells stows some three billion base pairs of DNA while maintaining access to functionally crucial segments. NHGRI was a supporter of the research.
  
  
• October 14, 2009: NIH Awards New Grants to Build Capacity in Informatics in Global Health
  From the National Insitutes of Health: The Fogarty International Center, part of the National Institutes of Health, announces it will award more than $9.23 million to eight global health informatics programs over the next five years. Fogarty's Informatics Training for Global Health program is intended to increase informatics expertise in low- and middle-income countries by training scientists to design information systems and apply computer-supported management and analysis to biomedical research. NHGRI particpated as an NIH funding partner.
  
  
• October 13, 2009: Scientists Use Mathematical Modeling to Correctly Predict Previously Unknown Biological Mechanism of Regulation
  From The University of Texas at Austin: A team of scientists, led by a biomedical engineer at The University of Texas at Austin, demonstrate — for the first time — that mathematical models created from data obtained by a recently developed technology called DNA microarrays, can be used to correctly predict previously unknown cellular mechanisms. This brings biologists a step closer to one day being able to understand and control the inner workings of the cell as readily as NASA engineers plot the trajectories of spacecraft today. NHGRI helped fund the research.
  
  
• September 29, 2009: Paul Marks Prize Recognizes 3 Young Cancer Researchers
  From Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center: Three young investigators who have taken significant steps toward advancing the understanding of cancer receive the 2009 Paul Marks Prize for Cancer Research, a prize awarded biennially since 2001 to scientists under the age of forty-six by Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. One of the awardees is also a leader in the Cancer Genome Atlas project, which is co-administered by the National Cancer Institute and NHGRI.
  
  
• September 24, 2009: Scientists in Major Prostate Cancer Gene Discovery
  From the Institute of Cancer Research: Scientists discover nine new sites in the human genome that have variants that can increase a man's risk of developing prostate cancer by three fold. Their findings were published in two papers in Nature Genetics. NHGRI's Cancer Genetics Branch Chief Elaine Ostrander, Ph.D., and researchers at her lab were co-authors on the study.
  
  
• September 18, 2009: President Honors Nation's Top Scientists and Innovators
  From the White House: President Obama names nine eminent researchers as recipients of the National Medal of Science, and four inventors and one company as recipients of the National Medal of Technology and Innovation, the highest honors bestowed by the United States government on scientists, engineers and inventors. Dr. Francis Collins, former director of NHGRI and the current director of the National Institutes of Health, is among the nine researchers honored.
  
  
• Video: National Medal of Science and the National Medal of Technology and Innovation
  Go to the White House Briefing Room Blog to see the video of the White House Ceremony held on October 7, 2009
  
  
• September 7, 2009: Scientists Identify Two Gene Variants Associated with Alzheimer's Risk
  From the National Institutes of Health: In the largest genome-wide association study (GWAS) reported to date involving Alzheimer's disease, scientists identify two new possible genetic risk factors for late-onset Alzheimer's, the most common form of the disease. The study,which pooled DNA samples from a number of European and U.S. groups, not only associated variations in the sequence of the CLU and PICALM genes with increased risk, but also found another 13 gene variants that merit further investigation, according to findings presented in the September 6, 2009, online issue of Nature Genetics. NHGRI was among several institutions that provided support for the collection of samples.
  
  
• August 25, 2009: CSHL Scientists Develop New Method to Detect Copy Number Variants Using DNA Sequencing Technologies
  From Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory: A research team led by Associate Professor Jonathan Sebat, Ph.D., of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) develops a sensitive and accurate way of identifying gene copy number variations (CNVs). The method, which is described in a paper published online ahead of print in Genome Research, uses new DNA sequencing technologies to look for regions of the genome that vary in copy number between individuals in the population. The research was funded by NHGRI.
  
  
• August 11, 2009: New Class of Compounds Discovered for Potential Alzheimer's Disease Drug, Penn Study Finds
  From the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine: A new class of molecules capable of blocking the formation of specific protein clumps that are believed to contribute to the dementia of Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients is discovered by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Chemical Genomics Center (NCGC). By assaying close to 300,000 compounds, the team has identified drug-like inhibitors of AD tau protein clumping, as reported in the journal Biochemistry. The research was funded in part by NHGRI.
  
  
• August 7, 2009: Secretary Sebelius Announces Senate Confirmation of Dr. Francis Collins as Director of the National Institutes of Health
  From the Department of Health and Human Services: On August 7, the U.S. Senate confirmed that former NHGRI Director Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D., will be the director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). President Barack Obama announced the nomination of Dr. Collins on July 8th. Dr. Collins, a physician and geneticist who led NHGRI from 1993 to 2008, managed the NIH component of the international Human Genome Project.
  
  
• August 6, 2009: Decoding Leukemia Patient Genome Leads Scientists to Mutations in Other Patients
  From Washington University in St. Louis: Decoding the complete DNA of cancer patients is giving scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis a clearer picture of the complexity of the disease, allowing them to see intriguing and unexpected genetic relationships among patients. The research - funded in part by NHGRI - is reported online in the August 5 New England Journal of Medicine.
  
  
• August 5, 2009: African Village Dogs Are Genetically Much More Diverse Than Modern Breeds, Study Finds
  From Cornell University: African village dogs are not a mixture of modern breeds but have directly descended from an ancestral pool of indigenous dogs, according to a Cornell-led genetic analysis of hundreds of semi-feral village dogs. Co-authors of the study, published online Aug. 3 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, included Elaine Ostrander, Ph.D., and Heidi Parker, Ph.D., both geneticists at NHGRI.
  
  
• July 21, 2009: Linc RNAs Serve as Genetic Air-Traffic Controllers
  From Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center: A scientific team from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and the Broad Institute have identified a class of RNA genes known as large intervening non-coding RNAs or "lincRNAs," a discovery that has pushed the field forward in understanding the roles of these molecules in many biological processes, including stem cell pluripotency, cell cycle regulation, and the innate immune response. The research — published in the July 14th issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences — was funded in part by the National Human Genome Research Institute.
  
  
• July 16, 2009: Disclosing Genetic Risk for Alzheimer's Disease Does Not Cause Psychological Distress
  From Boston University School of Medicine: Researchers from Boston University School of Medicine show that disclosing genetic risk information to adult children of patients with Alzheimer's disease who request this information does not result in significant short-term psychological distress. The report from the REVEAL Study appears in the July 16 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. Funding for the study was provided by the Ethical, Legal and Social Implications Branch of the National Human Genome Research Institute.
  
  
• July 15, 2009: Stealthy Gene Network Makes Brain Tumors Flourish
  From Northwestern University: Glioblastoma, the most aggressive form of brain cancer, has foiled researchers' decades-long efforts to thwart its explosive growth in the brain. But scientists from Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, using data from the The Cancer Genome Atlas funded by NHGRI and NCI, have now discovered the formidable tumor's soft underbelly. They have identified a network of 31 mutated genes that stealthily work together to create the perfect molecular landscape to allow the tumor to flourish and mushroom to the size of an apple in just a few months.
  
  
• June 30, 2009: Possible Benefit from Online Genetic Testing in Lung Cancer
  From the American Association for Cancer Research: As scientists continue to decode the human genome and the information becomes publicly available, private companies that offer online genetic testing are multiplying. Scientists at the National Institutes of Health were concerned that perhaps these tests posed a risk.
  
  
• June 5, 2009: Buffalo to Host Major International Conference on Biomedical Ontology in July
  From the University of Buffalo: How medical personnel and their digital systems talk to one another in a meaningful way is important to the health of the patients about whom they "converse." A vast array of philosophers, biomedical researchers and informatics scientists will address this problem July 24-26 at The International Conference on Biomedical Ontology, hosted by the University of Buffalo. The conference is largely funded by the National Human Genome Research Institute.
  
  
• June 4, 2009: Scientists Discover New Genetic Immune Disorder in Children
  From the National Institutes of Health: An international team of researchers, including NHGRI's Marjan Huizing, Ph.D., report the discovery of a new autoinflammatory syndrome, a rare genetic condition that affects children around the time of birth. The findings appear in the June 4, 2009 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.
  
  
• May 27, 2009: Meet the Complete Mouse — Whole Mouse Genome Sequence Published
  From Public Library of Science (PLoS) Biology: Are you a man or a mouse? A new paper, published in this week's issue of PLoS Biology, explores exactly what distinguishes our genome from that of the lab mouse. The research was funded by genome sequencing grants from the National Human Genome Research Institute.
  
  
• May 18, 2009: Researchers Gain Fine-Scale, Genome-Wide Insights into Patterns of Human Population Structures Around the World
  From the University of Washington: Through sophisticated statistical analyses and advanced computer simulations, researchers are learning more about the genomic patterns of human population structure around the world. Revealing such patterns provides insights into the history of human evolution, the predominant evolutionary forces that shaped local populations, and the relationships among populations. A National Human Genome Research Institute Interdisciplinary Training in Genomic Sciences grant supported this Akey laboratory research.
  
  
• May 14, 2009: Georgetown Research: Mothers Satisfied When They Share Cancer Genetic Test Results with Children
  From Georgetown University Medical Center: In a study funded by NHGRI's Ethical, Legal and Social Implications (ELSI) Research Program, researchers at the Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center report that mothers who made the decision to disclose their cancer genetic test results with their children were more satisfied than those who decided not to disclose their results. The researchers also report that mothers who disclosed the test results to their children experienced a more open parent-child communication relationship.
  
  
• May 11, 2009: National Institutes of Health Joins in Intel International Science and Engineering Fair Events
  From the National Institutes of Health: NIH will for the first time announce Grand Awards in the Medicine and Health category at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, the world's premiere science competition for high school students. NHGRI's Carla Easter, Ph.D., is among the experts who will evaluate the projects.
  
  
• May 10, 2009: Eight New Blood Pressure Genes Discovered
  From Imperial College of London: Eight common genetic variations that influence blood pressure have been identified in a new study from the Global Blood Pressure Genetics (BPGen) consortium, which includes scientists from NHGRI's Genome Technology Branch.
  
  
• April 15, 2009: Brown Researchers Create Novel Technique to Sequence Human Genome
  From Brown University: Physicists at Brown University develop a novel procedure to map a person's genome. They report in the journal Nanotechnology the first experiment to move a DNA chain through a nanopore using magnets. The approach is promising because it allows multiple segments of a DNA strand to be read simultaneously and accurately.
  
  
• April 15, 2009: Researchers Identify Specific Lung Cancer Susceptibility Gene
  From the University of Cincinnati: University of Cincinnati cancer cell biologists identify a distinct gene linked to increased lung cancer susceptibility and development. They say this gene-known as RGS17-could result in a genetic predisposition to develop lung cancer for people with a strong family history of the disease. Funding for this research comes from the National Institutes of Health through the Genetic Epidemiology of Lung Cancer Consortium, a group that includes NHGRI Senior Investigator Joan Baily-Wilson, Ph.D.
  
  
• April 8, 2009: Bioinformatics, Zebrafish At Focus During Cancer Control Month
  From Medical News Today: April marks National Cancer Control Awareness Month, which focuses on the importance of prevention, treatment and research. Making significant contributions in all of these areas is The Cancer Institute of New Jersey (CINJ), which is one of the nation's 40 Comprehensive Cancer Centers as designated by the National Cancer Institute and the only such center in New Jersey. Along with researchers at the National Human Genome Research Institute, a collaborative effort is underway to study the regulation of gene expression in early leukemia development using zebrafish.
  
  
• March 31, 2009: Cancer Genomics Browser gives cancer researchers a powerful new tool
  From University of California, Santa Cruz: A Cancer Genomics Browser developed by researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC), provides a new way to visualize and analyze data from studies aimed at improving cancer treatment by unraveling the complex genetic roots of the disease. In developing this browser, UCSC used data generated by The Cancer Genome Atlas, which is supported by the National Human Genome Research Institute and the National Cancer Institute.
  
  
• The following two news releases about the discovery of genetic variants related to sudden cardiac death, pertain to research supported in part by NHGRI.
  
  
• March 23, 2009: Ten genes identified in connection with sudden cardiac death
  From University of Michigan: Irregular heart rhythms are a common cause of sudden cardiac death or SCD, a condition that accounts for 450,000 deaths annually in the United States. Scientists are now closer to understanding what causes SCD and who it may strike, said Gonçalo Abecasis, associate professor of biostatistics at the University of Michigan School of Public Health. Abecasis co-led on an international study, published in the March 22 edition of Nature Genetics, that aimed to identify genetic defects associated with sudden cardiac death.
  
  
• March 22, 2009: Hopkins Scientists ID 10 Genes Associated with a Risk Factor for Sudden Cardiac Death
  From Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine: Sudden cardiac death, which annually claims more than a quarter million Americans, has a dearth of discernable symptoms and a lack of detectable molecules circulating in the blood, making the prediction of sudden cardiac death largely dependent on genetic risk factors. Johns Hopkins researchers, in collaboration with an international contingent of researchers, have identified 10 common variants of genes that modify the timing of the contraction of the heart, known as the QT interval. The study, published March 22 in Nature Genetics, provides new insight about the underpinnings of the QT interval which, when prolonged or shortened, predisposes to sudden cardiac death.
  
  
• March 19, 2009: What's driving specific patterns of gene expression among cell types?
  From University of California - San Diego: Providing another tool to help to understand gene regulation on a global scale, a nationwide research team has identified and mapped 55,000 enhancers, short regions of DNA that act to enhance or boost the expression of genes. The map, which was published March 18 in the advance on-line edition of the journal Nature, will help scientists understand how cells control expression of genes specific to their particular cell type. Funding for this research was provided in part by the National Human Genome Research Institute.
  
  
• February 25, 2009: Predicting risk of stroke from one's genetic blueprint
  From Children's Hospital Boston: A new statistical model could be used to predict an individual's lifetime risk of stroke, finds a study from the Children's Hospital Informatics Program (CHIP). Using genetic information from 569 hospital patients, the researchers showed that their predictive model could estimate an individual's overall risk of cardioembolic stroke - the most common form of stroke - with 86 percent accuracy. The findings are reported in the March issue of Stroke. The research was supported in part by the National Human Genome Research Institute.
  
  
• February 23, 2009: Landmark DNA Analysis Paper Published in Nature Nanotechnology
  From Oxford Nanopore Technologies: Oxford Nanopore Technologies ("Oxford Nanopore") announces the publication of new research in Nature Nanotechnology, demonstrating accurate and continuous identification of DNA bases using nanopores. The system can also directly identify methylated cytosine, important in the study of epigenetics. This research - funded in part by the National Human Genome Research Institute - marks significant progress towards Oxford Nanopore's goal of developing the first label-free, single molecule DNA sequencing technology.
  
  
• February 19, 2009: A New PAGE in the Genetics of Disease
  From Rutgers University: Population Architecture using Genomics and Epidemiology (PAGE) is a four-year project promoting research into how genes and diseases are associated. PAGE investigates how specific genetic variants act to influence the risk of diabetes, obesity, heart disease, autoimmune disorders, cancer and other common diseases. It is funded by the National Human Genome Research Institute and the National Institute of Mental Health, parts of the National Institutes of Health.
  
  
• February 5, 2009: Biologists Solve Mystery of Black Wolves
  From the University of California, Los Angeles: Why do nearly half of North American wolves have black coats while European wolves are overwhelmingly gray or white? The surprising answer, according to teams of biologists - including coauthor Elaine Ostrander, Ph.D. Chief of NHGRI's Cancer Genetics Branch - and molecular geneticists from Stanford University, UCLA, Sweden, Canada and Italy, is that the black coats are the result of historical matings between black dogs and wild gray wolves. The research, federally funded by the National Science Foundation, appeared Feb. 5 in the online edition of the journal Science and will be published later in the journal's print edition.
  
  
• February 1, 2009: Missing Links of the Transcriptome
  From the Broad Institute: Only 5 percent of our DNA is thought to be functional, with the 20,000 or so protein-coding genes accounting for just one-fifth of that and the rest still unknown. Researchers at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center have now discovered the identity of some of those unknown players using a new technique that looks for unusual signatures in the genome. The research - published Feb. 1 in the advance online issue of the jouranal Nature - was funded in part by NHGRI.
  
  
• January 29, 2009: Genes May Predict Vascular Malformation
  From the Medical College of Wisconsin: A pair of studies, led by Medical College of Wisconsin scientists at Children's Research Institute in Milwaukee, may translate into rapid molecular tests to distinguish between hemangiomas and congenital blood or lymph vessel malformations in infants. Hemangiomas are common birthmarks consisting of benign tumors of blood vessels. The studies appear in the January 29, 2009 issue of the journal Blood. Researchers from the Genome Technology Branch of the National Human Genome Research Institute were part of the studies.
  
  
• January 13, 2009: Surgeon General's New Family Health History Tool Is Released, Ready for "21st Century Medicine"
  From the Department of Health and Human Services: The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services releases an updated and improved version of the Surgeon General's Internet-based family health history tool. The new tool makes it easier for consumers to assemble and share family health history information. It can also help practitioners make better use of health history information so they can provide more informed and personalized care for their patients.

Top of page

2008

• December 21, 2008: Ancient African exodus mostly involved men, geneticists find
  From Harvard Medical School: Modern humans left Africa over 60,000 years ago in a migration that many believe was responsible for nearly all of the human population that exist outside Africa today. Now, researchers from NHGRI - and others - have revealed that men and women weren't equal partners in that exodus.
  
  
• December 17, 2008: NHGRI, NIEHS, EPA Researchers Receive Award for Alternative Toxicity Testing
  From the Humane Society of the United States: An NIH collaboration with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to improve safety testing of chemicals and reduce reliance on animal testing was recognized with the North American Alternative Award, presented jointly by the U.S. Humane Society and Procter & Gamble on Dec. 17, 2008. NHGRI's Christopher Austin, M.D., director of the NIH Chemical Genomics Center, accepted the award for the center's collaboration with federal scientists from the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The trans-agency collaboration, announced in February 2008, provides for the sample and the information-sharing necessary to more rapidly and effectively identify chemicals that might pose possible risks to the health of humans and animals, and to the environment.
  
  
• December 16, 2008: In just 5 years, gene discovery to clinical trial of potential treatment
  From American Society for Cell Biology: One of the fastest translations of a basic research discovery into a promising clinical trial for an "untreatable" and fatal disorder was discussed publicly for the first time by the key players on Dec. 14, at the American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB)'s annual meeting. The disease is progeria, or Hutchinson-Gilford Progeria Syndrome (HGPS), a rare, accelerated aging disease that afflicts children. Research on progeria has been spearheaded by former NHGRI Director Francis S. Collins.
  
  
• December 15, 2008: Breast cancer genome shows evolution, instability of cancer
  From Baylor College of Medicine: A newly published genome sequence of a breast cancer cell line reveals a heavily rearranged genetic blueprint involving breaks and fusions of genes and a broken DNA repair machinery, said researchers at Baylor College of Medicine in a report that appears online in the journal Genome Research. The research is part of The Cancer Genome Atlas, a project managed by the NHGRI and the National Cancer Institute.
  
  
• December 11, 2008: Public expectations for return of results from large-cohort genetic research
  From the Genetics & Public Policy Center: Participants in a series of focus groups feel strongly that anyone taking part in a large-cohort genetic study should have access to their research results, according to a new paper in the American Journal of Bioethics. The National Human Genome Research Institute turned to the Genetics and Public Policy Center to conduct a pilot public consultation project, recognizing that dialogue with the public would be critical to the success of creating a biobank for access to individual research results.
  
  
• December 8, 2008: New genes present drug targets for managing cholesterol and glucoselevels
  From the University of Michigan: A research team that includes NHGRI scientists has identified 12 new genes that are somewhat strange bedfellows. Some link gallstones and blood cholesterol levels, others link melatonin and sleep patterns to small increases in glucose levels and larger jumps in the risk of diabetes. While these associations are surprising, all the genes are potential new drug targets and some of them could help explain conditions that have been a mystery. On Dec. 8, Nature Genetics published two papers explaining the findings in advance of the January print edition.
  
  
• December 1, 2008: Powerful online tool for protein analysis provided pro bono by Stanford geneticist
  From Stanford University School of Medicine: Scientists around the world may benefit from a powerful new database, available for free online, that will help them to home in on the parts of proteins most necessary for their function. ProPhylER will enable researchers studying a protein, or the gene coding for it, to more easily figure out how it works and whether something might go wrong if the gene has a mutation. The development of the new database was funded by the National Human Genome Research Institute.
  
  
• November 19, 2008:Scientists Sequence Woolly-Mammoth Genome
  From Penn State, Eberly College of Science: Scientists at Penn State report sequencing the genome of an extinct animal: the woolly mammoth, an extinct species of elephant that was adapted to living in the cold environment of the northern hemisphere. The research was funded in part by the National Human Genome Research Institute.
  
  
• November 18, 2008: The International Cancer Genome Consortium announces the launch of 8 Cancer Genome Projects
  From the International Cancer Genome Consortium: The International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC) announce the commitments of 11 funding organizations in eight countries to generate comprehensive, high-resolution analyses of genomic changes for eight forms of cancer found across the planet. The ICGC projects will complement the large U.S.-based project, The Cancer Genome Atlas, which is a joint effort of the National Cancer Institute and the National Human Genome Research Institute.
  
  
• November 12, 2008: Survey Finds Wide Public Support for Nationwide Study Of Genes, Environment and Lifestyle
  From the Genetics and Public Policy Center: Four in five Americans support the idea of a nationwide study to investigate the interactions of genes, environment and lifestyle, and three in five say they would be willing to take part in such a study, according to a survey released today. The research was conducted by the Genetics & Public Policy Center at Johns Hopkins University with funding from the National Human Genome Research Institute of the National Institutes of Health.
  
  
• November 5, 2008: Washington University scientists first to sequence genome of cancer patient
  From the Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine: For the first time, scientists have decoded the complete DNA of a cancer patient and traced her disease - acute myelogenous leukemia - to its genetic roots. A large research team at the Genome Sequencing Center and the Siteman Cancer Center at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis - funded in part by the National Human Genome Research Institute - sequenced the genome of the patient - a woman in her 50s who ultimately died of her disease - and the genome of her leukemia cells, to identify genetic changes unique to her cancer. The study is reported in the Nov. 6 issue of the journal Nature.
  
  
• September 29, 2008: NIH Announces Funding for New Epigenomics Initiative
  From the National Institutes of Health: The National Institutes of Health (NIH) announces funding for the NIH Roadmap Epigenomics Program. The overall hypothesis of the program is that the origins of health and susceptibility to disease are, in part, the result of epigenetic regulation of the genetic blueprint. Researchers believe that understanding how and when epigenetic processes control genes during different stages of development and throughout life will lead to more effective ways to prevent and treat disease. The new program will use knowledge gained from the ongoing ENCyclopedia Of DNA Elements (ENCODE) project led by the National Human Genome Research Institute - an effort to catalog the structural and functional elements in the human genome, which includes the study of specific signatures of change in histones and the correlation of these signatures with different genome functions.
  
  
• September 23, 2008: Methylation Levels Key to Glioblastoma Survival
  From the American Association for Cancer Research: A new study analyzing gene expression among patients with glioblastomas finds that not all of the common, deadly brain tumors appear the same upon closer examination. The research, directed by scientists at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, utilized data from The Cancer Genome Atlas, a project organized by the National Cancer Institute and the National Human Genome Research Institute.
  
  
• September 23, 2008:Worm Genome Offers Clues to Evolution of Parasitism
  From the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis: The genome of a humble worm that dines on the microbial organisms covering the carcasses of dead beetles may provide clues to the evolution of parasitic worms, including those that infect humans, say scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and the Max-Planck Institute for Developmental Biology in Germany.
  
  
• September 19, 2008: Genetic Fishing Expedition Yields Surprising Catch Important to Mammals
  From the Johns Hopkins Medicine: Johns Hopkins investigators report the discovery of master controllers of a gene critical to human and all mammalian development by trawling, implausibly enough, through anonymous genetic sequences using tiny zebrafish embryos.
  
  
• September 9, 2008: Genetic Region Linked to a Five Times Higher Lung Cancer Risk
  From the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis: A narrow region on chromosome 15 contains genetic variations strongly associated with familial lung cancer, says a study conducted by scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and other institutions in the United States and the United Kingdom, and funded in part by the National Human Genome Research Institute.
  
  
• September 4, 2008: Thumbs Up — A Tiny Ancestral Remnant Lends Developmental Edge to Humans
  From the DOE Joint Genome Institute: Subtle genetic changes that confer an evolutionary advantage upon a species, such as the dexterity characteristic of the human hand, while difficult to detect and even harder to reproduce in a model system, have nevertheless generated keen interest amongst evolutionary biologists.
  
  
• August 27, 2008: Low Levels of Brain Chemical May Lead to Obesity, NIH Study of Rare Disorder Shows
  From the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development: A brain chemical that plays a role in long term memory also appears to be involved in regulating how much people eat and their likelihood of becoming obese, according to a National Institutes of Health study of a rare genetic condition.
  
  
• August 11, 2008: UA Receives $1.4 Million NIH Training Grant to Study Genes, the Environment, and Human Health
  From the University of Arizona: The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded The University of Arizona (UA) a five-year, $1.4 million grant to create a multidisciplinary "training ground" that will give student researchers the expertise to better understand how genes and the environment interact to affect human health — skills that could one day improve our ability to treat and prevent diseases such as diabetes and asthma.
  
  
• July 23, 2008: Victor A. McKusick, M.D., "Father of Medical Genetics," 1921-2008
  From Johns Hopkins Medicine: Victor Almon McKusick, M.D., University Professor of Medical Genetics at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, one of the two distinguished Johns Hopkins geneticists for whom the McKusick-Nathans Institute of Genetic Medicine was named, and a towering international figure in genetics research, diagnosis and treatment, died Tuesday, July 22 at home. He was 86.
  
  
• April 21, 2008: DNA Day Ambassadors Reach Out to North Carolina High Schools
  From the University of North Carolina: On April 25, young scientists from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, more than 200 graduate students and postdoctoral fellows in medicine and science from several universities, will visit almost 180 schools as part of DNA Day, an annual commemoration of two key scientific breakthroughs - the discovery of DNA's double helix in 1953, and the completion of the Human Genome Project in 2003.
  
  
• April 17, 2008: Charting the Epigenome: Salk Researchers Zoom in on Genome-Wide DNA Methylation and Transcriptomes at Single Base Resolution
  From the Salk Institute for Biological Studies: New high-throughput DNA sequencing technology has enabled researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies to map the precise position of individual DNA modifications throughout the genome of the plant Arabidopsis thaliana, and chart its effect on the activity of any of Arabidopsis' roughly 26,000 genes. The work was supported in part by grants from the National Human Genome Research Institute.
  
  
• April 9, 2008: Leading Geneticist Francis Collins Named First Recipient of the Inamori Ethics Prize at Case Western Reserve University
  From Case Western Reserve University: Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D., a physician-geneticist and leader of the Human Genome Project, has been named recipient of the inaugural Inamori Ethics Prize from the Inamori International Center for Ethics and Excellence at Case Western Reserve University.
  
  
  • Learn more: NHGRI Director to Receive International Ethics Prize
    
    
• April 4, 2008: GenBank Celebrates 25 Years of Service with Two-Day Conference; Leading Scientists Will Discuss the DNA Database at April 7-8 Meeting
  From the National Institutes of Health (NIH): In celebration of GenBank and its contribution to science over the last 25 years, the National Center for Biotechnology Information, National Library of Medicine, NIH, is holding a two-day conference to take place April 7-8, 2008 at the Natcher Conference Center on the main NIH campus in Bethesda, Maryland. NHGRI Director Dr. Francis S. Collins is a featured speaker at the conference.
  
  
• April 3, 2008: NIDA Researchers Identify Genetic Variant Linked to Nicotine Addiction and Lung Cancer
  From the National Institute on Drug Abuse: In a study published in the April 3 issue of the journal Nature, scientists identify a genetic variant that not only makes smokers more susceptible to nicotine addiction but also increases their risk of developing two smoking-related diseases, lung cancer and peripheral arterial disease. The research was supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The same variant was identified as one that increased risk for lung cancer in two other articles appearing in the April 3rd, 2008, issues of Nature and Nature Genetics, partially funded by two other NIH institutes - the National Cancer Institute and the National Human Genome Research Institute.
  
  
• March 25, 2008: Scientists Launch First Comprehensive Database of Human Oral Microbiome
  From the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research: Scientists know more today than ever before about the microbes that inhabit our mouths. They know so much, in fact, that gathering all of the relevant bits of information into one place when designing experiments can be a labor-intensive job in itself.
  
  
• March 24, 2008: First Beetle Genome Sequenced
  From Baylor College of Medicine: Sequencing the genome of the red flour beetle, also known as Tribolium castaneum, could prove of double benefit - both in understanding how organisms develop and in fighting the insect pest, said a researcher at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston who was part of the international consortium that published the genetic sequence in the current issue of the journal Nature.
  
  
• February 25, 2008: Center to Hold Town Halls on Genes, Environment, and Your Health in Five U.S. Cities
  From the Genetics and Public Policy Center: The Genetics and Public Policy Center will conduct a series of public town hall meetings to gather feedback from the public on their views related to a proposed large cohort study on the role of genes and environment in health. The town halls are part of a public consultation effort to inform the National Institutes of Health and other federal health agencies' discussions as they decide whether and how such a study might go forward.
  
  
• January 25, 2008: Search for the 'On' Switches May Reveal Genetic Role in Development and Disease
  From Duke University Medical Center News: A new resource that identifies regions of the human genome that regulate gene expression may help scientists learn about and develop treatments for a number of human diseases, according to researchers at Duke's Institute for Genome Sciences & Policy (IGSP).

Top of page

2007

• December 12, 2007: Cavities - Nature Or Nurture? $1 Million Grant To Pitt Dental School To Study Causes
  From Medical News Today: To identify the genetic and environmental risk factors that cause dental caries, the National Institutes of Health has awarded a $1 million grant to the University of Pittsburgh School of Dental Medicine researcher Mary L. Marazita, Ph.D. to study the interaction between genes and environmental factors that lead to tooth decay. The genome-wide association studies will be led by the National Human Genome Research Institute.
  
  
• November 20, 2007: Acting Surgeon General encourages Americans to know their health history during Fourth annual Family History Day
  From the Department of Health and Human Services: Acting Surgeon General Steven K. Galson, M.D., M.P.H., has declared Thanksgiving 2007 the fourth annual National Family History Day. He encourages everyone to use the occasion to discuss and identify health problems that seem to run in the family.
  
  
• November 16, 2007: RTI International Leads Effort to Create Standard Measures for Population Genomics Research
  From Research Triangle, N.C.: As part of an effort to maximize the benefits of research exploring the relationships between genetics, environment, health and disease, RTI International scientists will work with experts in a variety of health fields to develop a set of standard measures to be used in future genetics research. The project, PhenX (pronounced "phoenix"), will develop consensus measures for phenotypes and exposures.
  
  
• October 31, 2007: Domestic Cat Genome Published
  From Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory: A report that appears in the scientific journal Genome Research details the first assembly, annotation and comparative analysis of the domestic cat genome (Felis catus).
  
  
• October 30, 2007: President Bush Announces Recipients of Presidential Medal of Freedom
  From The White House: President George W. Bush has announced recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civil award. NHGRI Director Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D. will receive the award for revolutionizing genetic research at a White House ceremony on Monday, November 5, 2007. Dr. Elias Zerhouni, M.D., Director of the National Institutes of Health, issued a statement on the awarding of the Medal of Freedom.
  
  
• October 16, 2007: Combining new gene chips with fast sequencing technology brings universal sequence a step closer
  From Baylor College of Medicine: A new technique that combines gene chip technology with the latest generation of gene sequencing machines to allow fast and accurate sequencing of selected parts of the genome has been developed by researchers from the Human Genome Sequencing Center at Baylor College of Medicine, Houston and NimbleGen Systems, Inc. in Wisconsin. The research, published in the October issue of Nature Methods, was funded by the National Human Genome Research Institute and the National Cancer Institute.
  
  
• September 25, 2007: Pathway to Cell Death Redefined in Landmark Study
  From the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center: University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine findings hold promise in the fight against cancer, stroke, heart disease and other life-threatening illnesses. The study was funded in part by the National Human Genome Research Institute.
  
  
• September 20, 2007: HHS Issues First Department-Wide Report on Personalized Health Care
  From the Department of Health and Human Services: Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt releases the first department-wide report - Personalized Health Care: Opportunities, Pathways, Resources - on the goal of personalized health care and says work in biomedical science, health information technology and health care delivery should be aligned to produce "the right treatment, at the right time" for each individual patient.
  
  
• September 5, 2007: Ultraconserved Elements in the Genome: Are They Indispensable?
  From the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory: Scientists in the Genomics Division of the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and DOE's Joint Genome Institute test highly conserved sequences in mice by engineering four different "knockout" mice, each lacking one selected ultraconserved element and get surprising results.
  
  
• January 30, 2007: NIH funds next generation of DNA sequencing projects at ASU
  From Arizona State University: With a grant award from the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), scientists at the Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University are expanding efforts to dramatically lower the cost of DNA sequencing.
  
  
• January 29, 2007: Scientists to Assess Effects of Multiple Copies of Genes on Disease Risk
  From Washington University in St. Louis: Scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and the biotech firm Nimblegen Systems Inc. have successfully tested a technique for identifying newly recognized DNA variations that may influence disease risk.
  
  
• January 16, 2007: DNA Gets Its Groove On
  From the Washington Performing Arts Society: The Liz Lerman Dance Exchange investigates the startling realities of how knowledge of the genome will change the way we think about aging, perfection, ancestry, and evolution in its new work, Ferocious Beauty: Genome.

Top of page

2006

• December 14, 2006: Regulating the Nuclear Architecture of the Cell
  From the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory: NHGRI sponsored researchers in the Life Sciences Division of the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, discover two pathways that regulate the organization of the nucleolus and other features of nuclear architecture, maintaining genome stability in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster.
  
  
• December 13, 2006: NIH Launches dbGaP, a Database of Whole Genome Association Studies
  From the National Library of Medicine: The National Library of Medicine (NLM), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), announces the introduction of dbGaP, a new database designed to archive and distribute data from genome wide association (GWA) studies. GWA studies explore the association between specific genes (genotype information) and observable traits, such as blood pressure and weight, or the presence or absence of a disease or condition (phenotype information).
  
  
• December 12, 2006: Coriell Institute Awarded $3.1 Million NHGRI Contract For Next Phase of the HapMap Project
  From the Coriell Institute for Medical Research: The Coriell Institute for Medical Research was recently awarded a $3.1 million contract from the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) to establish a Sample Repository for Human Genetic Research. Donald L. Coppock, Ph.D., is the Principal Investigator (PI) for the new repository.
  
  
• November 9, 2006: Decoded Sea Urchin Genome Shows Surprising Relationship to Man
  From the Baylor College of Medicine: The Sea Urchin Genome Sequencing Project Consortium, led by the Human Genome Sequencing Center at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, announces the decoding and analysis of the genome sequence of the sea urchin, Strongylocentrotus purpuratus.
  
  
• November 1, 2006: Fungal Genome Exposes a "Corny" Plot
  From the Broad Institute: The efforts of an international research team to decode and analyze the U. maydis genome cast new light on the machinery that enables the fungus to do its dirty work. The paper describing this work appears in the November 2 issue of Nature.
  
  
• October 27, 2006: NIH Completes Formation of National Network of Nanomedicine Centers
  From the National Institutes of Health: The National Institutes of Health announces to the scientific community the completion of the national network of Nanomedicine Development Centers (NDCs).
  
  
• October 20, 2006: Genetic and Genomic Nursing Competencies Endorsed by Nursing Organizations
  From the American Nurses Association: The American Nurses Association, the only full-service professional organization representing the nation's 2.9 million registered nurses, the National Human Genome Research Institute, the National Cancer Institute, and the Office of Rare Diseases of the National Institutes of Health, have partnered to host a consensus panel of key experts and representatives of organizations to delineate essential genetic and genomic competencies for all registered nurses, regardless of academic preparation, practice setting, or specialty.
  
  
• October 18, 2006: NIEHS Allocates $74 Million to Study Environmental Causes of Disease
  From the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) : As part of the new Exposure Biology Program, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, a component of the National Institutes of Health, announces $74 million in grant opportunities for the development of new technologies that will improve the measurement of environmental exposures that contribute to human disease.
  
  
• October 11, 2006: NIH Grants to Help Grow Zebrafish Database
  From the University of Oregon: Two federal grants totaling more than $15 million from the National Human Genome Research Institute of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have advanced the University of Oregon's niche as the world's central clearinghouse for all research data related to zebrafish.
  
  
• October 10, 2006: Genetic Association Information Network Announces Genotyping Awards for Six Common Diseases
  From the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health: The Foundation for the National Institutes of Health (FNIH) today announced that six major studies of common diseases have been selected as the first to undergo whole genome analysis by the Genetic Association Information Network (GAIN).
  
  
• October 2, 2006: NIH/ORWH Announces New Fellowships in Women's Health
  From the National Institutes of Health: The Office of Research on Women's Health (ORWH) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Intramural Program for Research on Women's Health (IPRWH) announce the selection of the first recipients of the NIH Women's Health Fellowships in Intramural Women's Health Research.
  
  
• September 29, 2006: BWH Extends the U. S. Surgeon General's "My Family Health Portrait" to Chinese-Speaking Employees and Individuals Worldwide
  From the Brigham and Women's Hospital: Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) has launched a Chinese version of the U.S. Surgeon General's "My Family Health Portrait" on its Web site to assist its diverse workforce of 12,000 and support individuals worldwide who are interested in organizing their family's health history. The BWH Family History Project, funded by the National Human Genome Research Institute's Education and Community Involvement Branch, now has its tool publicly available on the hospital's Web site in Chinese, Polish, Portuguese, French, Spanish and English.
  
  
• September 19, 2006: Americans Willing to Donate Genetic Material for Research Federal Law Needed to Protect Genetic Privacy
  From the Research!America: Two-thirds of Americans (66 percent) say they are willing to donate their own genetic material in order to help scientists study disease, according to a Research!America national public opinion poll.
  
  
• August 30, 2006: NIH Seeks Input on Proposed Repository for Genetic Information
  From the National Institutes of Health: The National Institutes of Health (NIH) seeks public input on a proposed new policy designed to facilitate the research community's access to data resulting from NIH-funded, genome-wide association studies. NIH has published a Request for Information in the Federal Register today and will be accepting public comments until October 31.
  
  
• August 16, 2006: Genes, Behavior, and the Social Environment: Moving Beyond the Nature/Nurture Debate
  From Institute of Medicine: A new report says a shift from research conducted within individual disciplines to projects that engage investigators from a range of fields is needed to capitalize on expanding knowledge of how genetic, social and environmental factors interact to influence health. View the entire report.
  
  
• August 14, 2006: Advanced Bovine Genome Assembly, Genetic Resources Released: Cow Genome Project Heads for Home
  From Baylor College of Medicine: Researchers from the Bovine Genome Sequencing Project announce the release of a comprehensive set of genome resources into freely available public databases. These new assets for bovine researchers include the most complete and accurate genome sequence to date, an upgraded genetic map, and a new set of two million DNA base differences for use as DNA sequence polymorphisms.
  
  
• August 14, 2006: International Bovine Genome Sequencing Project Releases New Genetic Resources
  From the U.S. Department of Agriculture: Researchers from the Bovine Genome Sequencing Project are nearing completion on sequencing the genome of the cow and have released on free public databases bovine genetic information, including the most current, complete and accurate genome sequence and an upgraded genetic map.
  
  
• August 9, 2006: Unique Huntington's Study Moves Forward
  From the University of Rochester Medical Center: Doctors have completed the first step of a unique medical research study, evaluating 1,001 individuals at risk of developing Huntington's disease who do not know - nor do they want to know - whether they carry the genetic defect that causes the condition. Ira Shoulson, M.D., and colleagues from the Huntington Study Group report their progress on the study known as PHAROS, or Prospective Huntington At Risk Observational Study, in the July issue of the Archives of Neurology.
  
  
• July 20, 2006: Horse added to Broad's Genome Stable
  From the Broad Institute: A research team led by scientists at the Broad Institute is working to create a high-quality genome sequence of the domestic horse, Equus caballus, together with a compendium of genetic differences among seven different horse breeds.
  
  
• June 27, 2006: Protein Tied to Usher Syndrome May Be Hearing's Missing Link?
  From the National Institutes of Health: A protein associated with a disorder that causes deafness and blindness in people may be a key to unraveling one of the foremost mysteries of how we hear, says a study in the June 28 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience.
  
  
• May 17, 2006: Genome Doesn't Start with 'G'
  From the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute: The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and colleagues in the UK and USA publish the longest and final chapter in what has been called The Book of Life - the text and study of our human genetic material. Published in Nature, the report of the sequence of human chromosome 1 is the final chromosome analysis from the Human Genome Project.
  
  
• May 1, 2006: ASCO Recognizes Oncology Leaders for Outstanding Achievements
  From the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO): The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) announces the recipients of its 2006 Special Awards, which recognize individuals who have made significant contributions to both ASCO and the practice of clinical oncology, including NHGRI Director Francis Collins with a Science of Oncology Award.
  
  
• April 27, 2006: Chromosome 17: An Evolutionary Black Sheep?
  From The Broad Institute: In the April 20 issue of Nature, an international scientific team led by Broad Institute researchers reports the full sequence and analysis of chromosome 17, revealing an unusual history.
  
  
• April 26, 2006: Baylor Human Genome Sequencing Center Marks End of Sequencing Effort with Chromosome 3
  From Baylor College of Medicine: The sequencing of human chromosome 3 is announced in the current issue of the journal Nature, the final stage of Baylor's multi-year project to sequence the human genome.
  
  
• April 13, 2006: DNA Sequencing Contributes to Sequence of Honors for UH
  From the University of Houston: NHGRI-funded researcher Dr. Xiaolian Gao, a Univeristy of Houston biology and biochemistry professor and adjunct professor in chemistry and biomedical engineering, is honored by the Association for Women in Computing with a 2006 "Top Houston Women in Technology" award.
  
  
• April 10, 2006: Leader of Human Genome Project Lectures April 18 at MSU
  From Montana State University: Jane Peterson, a Montana native and leading figure with the National Human Genome Research Institute at the National Institutes of Health, will lecture on mapping the genome and what it means to the future.
  
  
• March 30, 2006: Scientists Disclose Chromosome's Knock-Off Parts
  From The Broad Institute: A team of scientists has announced the full DNA sequence and analysis of human chromosome 15, exposing its frequent reuse of second-hand parts.
  
  
• March 23, 2006: Chromosome 11 Rolls High Number
  From The Broad Institute: Another chapter has been added to Chromosome 11's crowded history with the completion and analysis of its DNA sequence, reported in the March 23 issue of Nature by an international scientific team.
  
  
• March 15, 2006: Chromosome 12 Annotated Sequence Complete
  From Baylor College of Medicine: Researchers from Baylor College of Medicine's (BCM) Human Genome Sequencing Center (HGSC) put the "final period" to the genetic "sentence" of chromosome 12 when they publish its annotated sequence as part of a report in the current issue of the journal Nature.
  
  
• February 16, 2006: Progeria Progress: Studies Show How Mutant Protein Hurts Hearts
  From Brown University: Two new research studies on progeria, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, detail the damage a mutant protein does to blood vessel cells of humans and mice. The discoveries offer increased hope for a cure for progeria, a genetic condition fatal in children, but may also provide key insight into the cause of adult heart disease.
  
  
• January 10, 2006: Professor Examines Licensing of DNA Patents
  From Georgetown University: Georgetown University professor LeRoy Walters and six colleagues show that the licensing of DNA patents at U.S. academic institutions has not led to the decline in academic cooperation and technology transfer that many observers have feared.

Top of page

2005

• September 28, 2005: NIH Renews Network Focused On How Genes Influence Drug Responses
  From the National Institutes of Health: Findings Will Pave the Way for Individually Tailored Therapies
  
  
• September 9, 2005: Mutation May Raise Prostate Cancer Risk in African Americans
  From Ohio State University: Researchers identify a gene mutation that may increase the risk of prostate cancer up to three times in African-American men with a family history of the disease.

To view the PDF on this page you will need Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Top of page

Last Updated: January 11, 2012