ENCODE

http://o.canada.com/2012/09/07/huge-dna-project-offers-guidebook-to-human-genome-200-m-encode-collaboration-releases-30-new-studies/


NEW YORK — In the largest single batch of discoveries about human DNA since the completion of the human genome project in 2003, 442 scientists in labs across three continents released 30 studies jam-packed with finds this week.

The discoveries, representing what the journal Nature calls the “guidebook to the human genome,” range from the esoteric — what is a gene? — to the practical — that just 20 gene switches may underlie 17 seemingly unrelated cancers, giving companies a workable number of drug targets.



The studies come from a $196-million project called the Encyclopedia of DNA Elements, or ENCODE, whose goal is to take the babel produced by the human genome project — the sequence of 3.2 billion chemical “bases” or “letters” that constitute the human genome — and make sense of it.