Genetics in the News
HUGO Calls for Patent Policy Changes
The Human Genome Organisation (HUGO) has released a statement appealing for a change in international patent policies to encourage fast release of DNA sequencing data in the international Human Genome Project. The statement asks for a 1-year grace period to file for a patent after announcing a discovery, a policy already in effect in the United States.
HUGO also asked the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) to rescind its position on granting patents for gene fragments called expressed sequence tags (ESTs). In February, PTO deputy director Lawrence Goffney was quoted as saying that PTO decided to grant patents on ESTs based on their usefulness as probes, even through the biological function of a gene fragment may be unknown. Researchers who merely identify the fragment may thus have a prior claim when other uses of the fragment—based on its biological function—are identified in the future.
Cancer Gene Web Site Set to Debut
The Cancer Genome Anatomy Project (CGAP) of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) is set to go online with the first installment in its cancer gene catalog. The goal of CGAP, which began last year, is to develop new diagnostic tools based on understanding molecular changes that underlie all cancers. These tools eventually will help doctors develop and select treatments designed to fight specific cancers. Europe is establishing a similar program called the Cancer Gene Expression Program.
One of CGAP's short-term goals is to compile an index of all genes that are turned on during the cancer process. Such an index would allow scientists, for the first time, to create complete genetic profiles differentiating among normal, precancerous, and malignant cells. The index will feature EST sequences from 45 cDNA libraries of lung, colon, prostate, ovarian, and breast tumors. Data about the tumors and source libraries also will be presented.
DOE researchers are generating the bacterial clones needed to hold ESTs and longer cDNA fragments, and the Integrated Molecular Analysis of Gene Expression consortium will make them available to all researchers. DOE support stands at about $1 million. NCI is putting forward $4 million for the index, $6 million to develop gene-analysis technologies and generate long cDNAs, and $10 million to develop clinical applications for this research data.
Yeast Genome Directory
Published as a separate supplement to the May 29th issue of Nature, the Yeast Genome Directory contains papers on the sequence of all unpublished Saccharomyces cerevisiae chromosomes (IV, V, VII, IX, XII, XIII, XIV, XV, and XVI), along with gene maps and tables summarizing the yeast genome's structure and gene properties. The yeast genome sequence was released to the public last year on the Web (http://genome-www.stanford.edu/Saccharomyces). The directory also contains a "News and Views" article by Craig Venter (The Institute for Genomic Research) on the implications of yeast genome research (Nature Web site, http://www.nature.com).
Stanford Releases High-Resolution Human Genome Map
A new STS-based radiation hybrid map of the human genome appears in the May issue of Genome Research [7(5), 422–33]. The new map contains over 10,000 loci covering most of the human genome.
Human Disease Genes Found in Model Organisms
Researchers at the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) used known DNA sequences of 70 human genes linked to such disorders as colon cancer and obesity to search public sequence databases for counterparts in yeast, Escherichia coli, and roundworm. They found the highest number of matches in worm databases (36%) and expect to find more as the other half of the worm's genes are sequenced. Another 10 to 20% of the human genes had related genes in bacteria and yeast. A paper reporting this work by Eugene Koonin and colleagues (NCBI) is published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 94, 5831-36 (May 1997).
Whitehead-MIT Teams with Companies
A new consortium of companies has signed a 5-year arrangement with Eric Lander's group at Whitehead–Massachusetts Institute of Technology to develop automated systems for analyzing gene and protein activities in normal and diseased cells. Bristol-Myers Squibb, Affymetrix, and Millenium Pharmaceuticals are contributing $40 million in cash and equipment in return for commercial rights to technologies developed under the program.