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hicago--The SNP Consortium announced that IBM has joined its group effort to create a public database of gene markers to enhance understanding of the biological basis for disease. IBM joins 10 major pharmaceutical companies, the Wellcome Trust, and Motorola in the two-year, $50 million initiative to identify and analyze SNPs.
Founded last year, the consortium intends to identify a minimum of 300,000 and map at least 150,000 SNPs by April 2001. Since November, the group has deposited some 7,200 newly identified and characterized SNPs into public databases accessible through the internet, said the consortium.
