NIH Awards $28.6M to Three Sequencing Centers as Part of $42M Round for Human Microbiome Project

June 23, 2009

By Julia Karow

The four-year awards go to three sequencing centers who participated in the initial phase of the project: the Washington University Genome Center, the J. Craig Venter Institute, and the Human Genome Sequencing Center at Baylor College of Medicine.

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In this issue of In Sequence

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Martin Beck

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Group Leader, Structural and Computational Biology Unit

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Martin Beck's research group at EMBL combines biochemical approaches, proteomics and cryo-electron microscopy to study the structure and function of large macromolecular assemblies. The end goals of this work include developing integrated workflows for structure determination of large macromolecular assemblies such as the nuclear pore complex, elucidation of their function through real-time imaging, and ultimately revealing the steps of their assembly and disassembly process.
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Papers of Note

Sequencing and Analysis of the Hydra Genome
Chapman, Kirkness et al., Nature
An international research collaboration reports their sequencing and analysis of the Hydra magnipapillata genome, and compare it to the genomes of several other organisms. "The Hydra genome has been shaped by bursts of transposable element expansion, horizontal gene transfer, trans-splicing, and simplification of gene structure and gene content that parallel simplification of the Hydra life cycle," the authors write. They team suggests that comparisons of the Hydra genome to the reported sequences of other animals have helped them to elucidate the evolution of several of the organism's characteristics.

GWAS Identifies Risk Loci for Ulcerative Colitis
Abrecht, Wittig et al., Nature Genetics
Researchers present results from a genome-wide association study which identified risk loci at 7q22 and 22q13 for ulcerative colitis. Their analyses included 1,897,764 SNPs from 1,043 UC cases and 1,703 controls from Germany, and six replication panels from different regions in Europe.
People on the Move

Affymetrix has appointed Timothy Barabe to the chief financial officer post. He will run the firm's treasury and financial functions, investor relations, and its information technology departments. Barabe previously was senior VP and CFO at Human Genome Sciences, and he was CFO at Regent Medical. He also has worked in various roles at Novartis, including senior executive positions at CIBA Vision.

Barabe replaces John Batty, who was with Affymetrix for three years.

Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute Professor Leena Peltonen-Palotie died this week of cancer at her home in Finland, according to the Sanger Institute. Peltonen-Palotie was head of human genetics at Wellcome Trust, and she held appointments at the Broad Institute at MIT and Harvard and the Institute for Molecular Medicine Finland.
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Adding data on 10 genetic variants to non-genetic risk models of breast cancer offers little improvement for predicting breast cancer risk, researchers from the National Cancer Institute and elsewhere concluded following a study of nearly 6,000 women with the disease.
Business
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NIH Awards $28.6M to Three Sequencing Centers as Part of $42M Round for Human Microbiome Project

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