Here I present:“A Map of the Human Genome”, SCIENCE, #274 volume, 25 October 1996, pages 540-550.
INTRODUCTION.
The Genome issue of Science, which records an important milestone on the way to the sequencing of the human genome, which was completed only 5 years later. “An international consortium of genome laboratories from North America, Europe, and Japan has created a unified gene map that establishes the location of more than 16,000 human genes.
The unified gene map represents the first edition of the quintessential goal of the Human Genome Project a catalog of all the genes that make up a human being and provides the location of one in five of all human genes.
‘This gene map and its future editions will provide geneticists the biological equivalent of a chemists’ periodic table’ a systematic and universal frame of reference that will speed the discovery of genes underlying inherited human diseases,’ says Dr. Eric Lander, a member of this consortium and director of the Whitehead/MIT Center for Genome Research. ‘With such a map, searching for a disease gene should no longer take years of painstaking effort. Instead, geneticists will be able to simply scan the human genome for an inventory of all the genes, or candidates, in a suspected region and identify the culprit. Gene maps will also become essential for searching the genetic basis of complex diseases, such as diabetes and cancer, that are caused by the interaction of several genes and the environment.’
The new gene map is described in the October 25 issue of Science by more than 100 authors representing the international consortium. ‘A map like this has tremendous value for identifying disease-genes and provides extraordinary opportunities for a new era of medicine. Given this, and the wealth of information we have collected so far on the human genome, it seemed a shame to wait until the entire genome is sequenced to put together a gene map,’ says Dr. Thomas Hudson, senior author on the paper and head of the Whitehead mapping team. ‘It made more sense to construct a series of increasingly comprehensive gene maps that geneticists around the world can put to good use.’ In a separate article appearing in the same issue of Science, Dr. Lander explores “A Map of the Human Genome”, SCIENCE, #274 volume, 25 October 1996, page 540-550. further the significance of this new resource and speculates about the ‘post-genome world,’ proposing 10 goals for the future of biology” (‘A Gene Map of the Human Genome) 25 October 1996).
