DNA Decoding Landmark

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Researchers Claim To Have Unlocked First 1% Of The Human Genetic Code, With Groundbreaking Results
June 13, 2007

     WebMD) Researchers announced they have decoded the first 1% of the human genetic code — and the results already are rewriting the rules of biology.

The massive, four-year, $42 million effort, organized by the U.S. National Human Genome Research Institute, is called the Encyclopedia of DNA Elements, or ENCODE. It involved 35 researcher groups from 80 organizations scattered across 11 nations.

It's a huge success, says NHGRI Director Francis Collins, M.D., Ph.D. The project builds on the Human Genome Project, which in 2003 finally pieced together the DNA sequences that make up the human genome.

"But the genome is written in a language we are still trying to learn how to understand," Collins said in a news conference. "ENCODE is building an encyclopedia to tell us what functions are encoded in this remarkable 3-billion-letter script.

   That script ... somehow carries within it all of the instructions necessary to take a single-celled embryo and turn it into the very complex biological entity called a human being."

Collins says that the success of this pilot project means that over the next four years, researchers will undertake a $100 million effort to decode the remaining 99% of the human genome.

The early findings already rewrite the human biology rulebook — especially the rules about what genes are and what they do. The biggest surprises:

Human genes aren't discrete boxes of DNA. Instead, DNA from all over the genome contributes to the units of inheritance we call genes.

It was once thought that all functional genes encode protein molecules, the building blocks of the body.

   The rest of the DNA was called "junk DNA." Now it turns out that this "junk" is just as important as the rest of the genome.

Genes, once supposed to have only one specific function, are now shown to have, on average, at least five different functions.

   Very few genes actually code for proteins. The vast majority of genes regulate the function of other genes, telling them when, where, and how they should work.

   Many of our genes are just along for the ride, doing us neither good nor harm. But these "bystander" genes may be the stuff from which future
human evolution will be made... Read more