Fleshing out the genome February 04, 2005 Pacific Northwest-led
team devises powerful new system for tying genes to vital
functions in cells and for comparing molecular makeup of
organisms RICHLAND, Wash. – Genomics, the study of all the
genetic sequences in living organisms, has leaned heavily on the
blueprint metaphor. A large part of the blueprint,
unfortunately, has been unintelligible, with no good way to
distinguish a bathroom from a boardroom, to link genomic
features to cell function. A national consortium of scientists
led by BIATECH, a Seattle-area non-profit research center, and
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, a Department of Energy
research institution in Richland, Wash., now suggests a way to
put this house in order. They offer a powerful new method that
integrates experimental and computational analyses to ascribe
function to genes that had been termed "hypothetical" –
sequences that appear in the genome but whose biological
purposes were previously unknown. The method not only portends a