Wellcome Trust, Sanger, Perlegen, and Affy to Genotype 15K Samples in Search of Complex Disease Genes

NEW YORK, Oct. 5 (GenomeWeb News) - The Wellcome Trust Case Control Consortium, the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Perlegen Sciences, and Affymetrix will jointly search for genes associated with 10 complex diseases, the partners said today.

The consortium plans to study 11,000 samples to find genes associated with coronary heart disease, hypertension, types 1 and 2 diabetes, bipolar disorder, Crohn's disease, rheumatoid arthritis, and tuberculosis. The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute will analyze an additional 4,000 samples to find the genetic origins of diseases such as types 1 and 2 diabetes, obesity, and malaria.

Perlegen will genotype the 15,000 individuals, producing more than 10 billion genotypes, using Affymetrix's microarray technology, including the Human Mapping 500K array set.

The WTCCC is a team of 24 human geneticists at a number of UKinstitutions, including the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, LeicesterUniversity, CambridgeUniversityand Oxford Unviersity.