From the Labs
Houston, Texas
Volume 6, Issue 1
February 2007

Briefs

Genome Center gets boost from federal grants

Baylor College of Medicine's Human Genome Sequencing Center is one of several U.S. institutions to received federal grant money that funds efforts to use DNA sequencing to unlock the genomic secrets of human diseases, including cancer.

The BCM-HGSC will receive $27.6 million in the next fiscal period, part of a total award of about $114 million over four years. Other centers receiving funding are the Broad Institute Sequencing Platform at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University and the Washington University Genome Sequencing Center.

All three sequencing centers will devote a significant part of their efforts to the Cancer Genome Atlas Pilot Project, which is a collaborative three-year pilot project between the National Human Genome Research Institute and the National Cancer Institute that is testing the feasibility of a large-scale, systematic approach to identify important genomic changes involved in cancer.

The BCM-HGSC and the other two sequencing centers will sequence a substantial number of selected gene targets to identify genomic changes, such as single base mutation and small insertion/deletions in brain, lung and ovarian tumors.

The centers will also pursue new ways to increase the speed and lower the cost of DNA sequencing by testing and implementing several new technologies that could potentially revolutionize large-scale sequencing and expand the use of genomics in medical research and health care. They will also focus increased attention on sequencing the genomes of organisms like bacteria, fungi, parasites and insects, which cause or transmit human disease.

Sea urchin, man: Not so different

A project to decode and analyze the genome sequence of the sea urchin has been completed, and it shows that sea urchins and humans share even more genes and biological pathways than previously thought.

The Sea Urchin Genome Sequencing Project was led by Baylor College of Medicine's Human Genome Sequencing Center. The sequence contained more than 814 letters, spelling out 23,300 genes. Primary results of the project appeared in a recent issue of the journal Science.

Sea urchins are echinoderms, marine animals that include starfish, brittle stars, sea lilies and sea cucumbers, and they share a common ancestor with humans. That ancestor that lived more than 540 million years ago and gave rise to the Deuterostomes, the superphylum of animals that includes echinoderms and chordates—the phylum to which humans and other vertebrates belong.

The genomes of the sea urchin and of humans were compared to discover how they could be so different yet be descended from the same ancient relative. The comparison is important for several reasons. One is that it shows which human genes have changed slowly and which have evolved rapidly in response to natural selection. This will make it possible to one day know the history of every human gene and to build a picture of what the extinct ancestors that gave rise to animal life looked like. What's more, comparing the genome sequences offers novel insights into our own genome, deepening the understanding of the human body in health and disease.

New research collaboration

Members of the John S. Dunn Gulf Coast Consortium for Chemical Genomics, including Baylor College of Medicine, have entered into a significant scientific relationship with Invitrogen Corporation, a company that provides essential life sciences technologies.

As part of the new relationship, consortium members plan to use Invitrogen's broad gene expression and imaging portfolio to enable discovery of biomedically relevant aspects of gene and protein expression through advanced screening techniques. Screening centers will focus on many aspects of disease-related biology, including diabetes, cancer and steroid hormone-related metabolic disorders. Initial experiments will use Invitrogen's human kinase, human nuclear receptor and mouse nuclear receptor collections.

Zwaka earns medical research grant

Thomas Zwaka, M.D., Ph.D., of Baylor College of Medicine, was one of several scientists to earn a grant from the Tilker Medical Research Foundation.

Zwaka, assistant professor in the department of molecular and cellular biology and in the Center for Cell and Gene Therapy, received a Seed Funding Award. The $250,000 grant promotes innovative research by junior investigators at U.S. institutions. Zwaka was the first scientist to demonstrate that genes could be engineered specifically in human embryonic stem cells.

With this grant, Zwaka will pursue generating a stem cell line capable of producing large numbers of differentiated cells, supplying the volumes and specific cell types needed for experimental studies and for transplantation therapies for diseases such as heart disease, Parkinson's and leukemia.