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Human Genome News, July 1990; 2(2)
Working Group Promotes Redirection of Efforts to Mapping
At its December 1989 meeting, the Joint DOE-NIH Subcommittee on the Human Genome established the Joint Mapping Working Group to consider issues related to the project goals of genetic linkage mapping and physical mapping.
The working group's first meeting was held in March in Salt Lake City to discuss the rate of progress in human genetic linkage mapping, an area discussed at the December meetings of the NIH Program Advisory Committee on the Human Genome (PACHG) and the Joint DOE-NIH Subcommittee.
Working group members David Botstein, David R. Cox, and Maynard Olson, along with a panel of invited consultants, met to review the status of genetic mapping. They concluded that laboratory managers would agree to a formal contract redirecting a portion of their effort to mapping. Responsibility for mapping specific chromosomes is being undertaken.
In addition, the group plans to coordinate the identification of index markers on specific chromosomes. The near-term goal is to establish 300 markers located an average distance of 10 cM apart; increased focus will be on regions currently without markers. Further discussions on the status of each chromosome map will be held later this year.
The six-member Joint Mapping Working Group met the next day at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), where discussions focused on developing an operational definition of sequence tagged sites (STS), on using STS as a mapping tool, and on making STS a common language among laboratories. The group agreed that sequencing a small segment of each marker will help to link the genetic map and the physical map. They noted that characterization of an STS must include proof of single copiness; the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) product of STS must be a single band in Southern hybridizations.
In addition, the group considered certain informatics needs: characteristics of the laboratory notebook database for the next 10 years and procedures for handling notebook material. Reports and recommendations of both working group meetings were to be presented to the NIH PACHG and the Joint DOE-NIH Subcommittee at their meetings in June. Recommendations by these committees will be discussed in the next issue of Human Genome News.
Reported by Mark Guyer
Assistant Director for Program Coordination
NCHGR
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Human Genome Program, U.S. Department of Energy, Human Genome News (v2n2).
The Human Genome Project (HGP) was an international 13-year effort, 1990 to 2003. Primary goals were to discover the complete set of human genes and make them accessible for further biological study, and determine the complete sequence of DNA bases in the human genome. See Timeline for more HGP history.
Published from 1989 until 2002, this newsletter facilitated HGP communication, helped prevent duplication of research effort, and informed persons interested in genome research.
