NEW YORK,July 9 -- SeqWright, a Houston-based genomic services provider, announced today the start of its gene sequencing efforts as part of the Songbird Brain Gene Project, a research collaboration to create a cDNA library and a microarray tool.
The company is sequencing cDNAs from the zebra finch library compiled by the lab of Erich Jarvis and Kazuhiro Wada at Duke University. The goal of the research, a collaboration between Duke and the Riken Genomic Sciences Center of Yokohama, Japan, is to discover neural mechanisms for vocal learning, language, and basic mechanisms of brain function and brain evolution.
The project, funded by the Whitehall and Klingenstien Foundations, will create a microarray containing cDNA probes from genes expressed by song birds undergoing vocal learning and communication.
Sequence data obtained will be depositied in the Songbird cDNA Transcriptome Database (http://ccis1599.duhs.duke.edu/jsp/songbird_new/public.jsp).