Wednesday, May 9, 2007

Broad Institute maps a marsupial genome

A team of researchers at the Broad Institute has published the first genome sequence of a marsupial, according to the National Institutes of Health.

The project, which began in 2003 and cost $25 million, generated a sequence of a South American species of opossum. The research was sponsored by NIH's National Human Genome Research Institute. Researchers in the field say they hope to identify the elements of the genome to make discoveries in human biology and find the causes and cures of disease.

Kerstin Lindblad-Toh is the co-director of the Broad Institute's genome sequencing and analysis program and senior author of the marsupial study.

The Broad Institute is based in Cambridge and was founded in 2003 from a $100 million donation made by Eli and Edythe Broad. The institute is jointly governed by academics and medical professionals at MIT and Harvard University.

NIH is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is made up of 27 institutes and centers dedicated to conducting and supporting basic, clinical and translational medical research to investigates the causes, treatments and cures for disease.