Apr. 29, 2010 An African clawed frog has joined the spotted
green puffer fish, the honeybee, and the human among the ranks
of more than 175 organisms that have had their genetic
information nearly completely sequenced. While the research
could help scientists better understand the factors causing the
vast die-off of amphibians around the globe, scientists are also
excited about the potential the finding has to improve human
health by giving scientists a new tool to understand how our
genes work at the most basic level. The genome -- the collection
of genetic information -- of Xenopus tropicalis, a native of
sub-Sahara Africa that lives nearly entirely in water, is
published in a paper in the April 30 issue of the journal
Science. Authors include Jacques Robert, Ph.D., an immunologist
at the University of Rochester Medical Center, one of two dozen
institutions worldwide that cooperated in the study. The overall
effort was led by Uffe Hellsten of the U.S. Department of Energy
Joint Genome Institute in Walnut Cr