OAKLAND, and PALO ALTO, CA – (DJC) – Two Californian companies have teamed
to analyse and post on the Internet the entire collection of human genes.
The companies, DoubleTwist and Sun Microsystems, say their study, conducted
as part of the publicly-financed Human Genome Project, will eventually
enable subscribing researchers to get a complete map of all 100,000 or so
human genes from their web site.
“The Human Genome Project has done a tremendous job of providing the primary
sequence of more than 80 percent of the genome to date. We have built upon
this accomplishment by processing this data to reveal its most important
information – the genes,” said John Couch, Chairman and Chief Executive
Officer of DoubleTwist. “Further, we are providing a mechanism for
scientists to easily view and mine this information on DoubleTwist.com.”
DoubleTwist’s proprietary multi-step genomic analysis pipeline includes
multiple validated gene prediction algorithms, as well as methodologies
based on elucidating DNA and protein similarities. To accomplish the initial
annotation of the human genome and to facilitate on-going genomic
processing, DoubleTwist has developed a distributed processing system that
facilitates high-throughput processing and analysis.
“Finding genes in the human genome is not trivial,” said Nick Tsinoremas,
Director of Research at DoubleTwist. “We have developed a computationally
and scientifically intense methodology designed to provide the best overall
view of the human genome, including the location of the genes and their
function. This is a foundation that enables further discovery.”
“With today’s announcement, the stage is set for a new era of discovery,”
said Greg Papadopoulos, Chief Technology Officer for Sun Microsystems, Inc.
“What the Web browser is to the Internet, DoubleTwist.com is to the human
genome. It makes this whole complex collection of information easy to use.”
