Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!uunet!bionet!CU.NIH.GOV!GY4
From: GY4@CU.NIH.GOV
Newsgroups: bionet.molbio.genome-program
Subject: Re:  Human Genome Program Announcement for training
Message-ID: <9001122324.AA01824@alw.nih.gov>
Date: 12 Jan 90 23:26:17 GMT
Sender: daemon@genbank.BIO.NET
Lines: 41

Dr. Shirrif,

Whose genome will be sequenced? is a question commonly asked
about the Human Genome Initiative.  The answer is: No one's.
The first complete human genome sequence will be a composite
of sequences from many sources, most of these being cell lines
that will be created during the project or have existed in
laboratories all over the world for some time.  The sequence
will thus be a generic sequence and not that of any individual.
It has been suggested that, due to the great amount of sequence
variation between individuals, a single sequence would not be
representative of humans in general.  While it is true that much
valuable insight will come from comparing many different human
sequences, in fact the critical regions of human DNA are known
to be highly conserved between individuals, as they are between
different species, and a single complete reference sequence will
provide a standard against which others can be compared.  DNA
regions of particular interest, such as genes involved in genetic
disease, will be sequenced from many individuals in the course of
research on those diseases (supported by many sources other than
the Human Genome Program).

Mark Guyer
Assistant Director for Program Coordination
National Center for Human Genome Research

Date: Thu, 11 Jan 90 14:00:00 PST
From: shirriff@sprite.Berkeley.EDU (Ken Shirriff)
Message-Id: <9001112200.AA787994@sprite.Berkeley.EDU>
To: JP2@CU.NIH.GOV
Subject: Re: Human Genome Program Announcement for training
Newsgroups: bionet.molbio.genome-program
In-Reply-To: <9001101530.AA01092@alw.nih.gov>
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
Cc:

I have a question about the Human Genome Program.  Presumably
all researchers will be mapping the same human genome.  So who will
be the person whose genome gets mapped?

Ken Shirriff   shirriff@sprite.Berkeley.EDU