BETHESDA, Md.- A Washington University researcher said he expects his team to complete the initial shotgun sequencing of the mouse genome by December.
The draft will represent about 80 percent of the total mouse genome “in a way that will be useful to researchers by the end of the year,” said Robert H. Waterston, head of the Genome Sequencing Center of the in St. Louis-based university. After that, researchers will have to fill in the remaining gaps using bacterial artificial clones.
Waterson, who mentioned the target completion date at a panel discussion sponsored by the National Human Genome Research Institute here on Sept. 10, said he hopes to finish the mouse genome sequence by 2005, Waterston said.