Mapping the human brain by function has been the goal for many years.
https://scitechdaily.com/new-comprehensive-map-ties-every-human-gene-to-its-function/
New Comprehensive Map Ties Every Human Gene to Its Function
TOPICS:GeneticsMITMIT’s Whitehead Institute
By EVA FREDERICK, MIT WHITEHEAD INSTITUTE JUNE 11, 2022
Scientists used their single-cell sequencing tool Perturb-seq on every expressed gene in the human genome, linking each to its job in the cell.
Genetics research has advanced rapidly over the last few decades. For example, just a few months ago scientists announced the first complete, gap-free human genome sequencing. Now researchers have advanced again, creating the first comprehensive functional map of genes that are expressed in human cells.
The Human Genome Project was an ambitious initiative to sequence every piece of human DNA
DNA, or deoxyribonucleic acid, is a molecule composed of two long strands of nucleotides that coil around each other to form a double helix. It is the hereditary material in humans and almost all other organisms that carries genetic instructions for development, functioning, growth, and reproduction. Nearly every cell in a person’s body has the same DNA. Most DNA is located in the cell nucleus (where it is called nuclear DNA), but a small amount of DNA can also be found in the mitochondria (where it is called mitochondrial DNA or mtDNA).
" data-gt-translate-attributes="[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; border-left: 0px; border-image: initial; font: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; border-bottom: 1px dotted rgb(0, 0, 0) !important;">DNA. The project drew together collaborators from research institutions around the world, including MIT
MIT is an acronym for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It is a prestigious private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts that was founded in 1861. It is organized into five Schools: architecture and planning; engineering; humanities, arts, and social sciences; management; and science. MIT's impact includes many scientific breakthroughs and technological advances.
" data-gt-translate-attributes="[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; border-left: 0px; border-image: initial; font: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; border-bottom: 1px dotted rgb(0, 0, 0) !important;">MIT’s Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, and was finally completed in 2003. Now, over two decades later, MIT Professor Jonathan Weissman and colleagues have gone beyond the sequence to present the first comprehensive functional map of genes that are expressed in human cells. The data from this project, published online on June 9, 2022, in the journal Cell, ties each gene to its job in the cell, and is the culmination of years of collaboration on the single-cell sequencing method Perturb-seq.
The data are available for other scientists to use. “It’s a big resource in the way the human genome is a big resource, in that you can go in and do discovery-based research,” says Weissman, who is also a member of the Whitehead Institute and an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. “Rather than defining ahead of time what biology you’re going to be looking at, you have this map of the genotype-phenotype relationships and you can go in and screen the database without having to do any experiments.”
CRISPR, which stands for clustered regularly-interspaced short palindromic repeats, a genome editing tool invented in 2009 made it easier than ever to edit DNA. It is easier, faster, less expensive, and more accurate than previous genetic editing methods.
The screen allowed the researchers to delve into diverse biological questions. They used it to explore the cellular effects of genes with unknown functions, to investigate the response of mitochondria to stress, and to screen for genes that cause chromosomes to be lost or gained, a phenotype that has proved difficult to study in the past. “I think this dataset is going to enable all sorts of analyses that we haven’t even thought up yet by people who come from other parts of biology, and suddenly they just have this available to draw on,” says former Weissman Lab postdoc Tom Norman, a co-senior author of the paper.
https://scitechdaily.com/new-comprehensive-map-ties-every-human-gene-to-its-function/
New Comprehensive Map Ties Every Human Gene to Its Function
TOPICS:GeneticsMITMIT’s Whitehead Institute
By EVA FREDERICK, MIT WHITEHEAD INSTITUTE JUNE 11, 2022
Scientists used their single-cell sequencing tool Perturb-seq on every expressed gene in the human genome, linking each to its job in the cell.
Genetics research has advanced rapidly over the last few decades. For example, just a few months ago scientists announced the first complete, gap-free human genome sequencing. Now researchers have advanced again, creating the first comprehensive functional map of genes that are expressed in human cells.
The Human Genome Project was an ambitious initiative to sequence every piece of human DNA
DNA, or deoxyribonucleic acid, is a molecule composed of two long strands of nucleotides that coil around each other to form a double helix. It is the hereditary material in humans and almost all other organisms that carries genetic instructions for development, functioning, growth, and reproduction. Nearly every cell in a person’s body has the same DNA. Most DNA is located in the cell nucleus (where it is called nuclear DNA), but a small amount of DNA can also be found in the mitochondria (where it is called mitochondrial DNA or mtDNA).
" data-gt-translate-attributes="[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; border-left: 0px; border-image: initial; font: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; border-bottom: 1px dotted rgb(0, 0, 0) !important;">DNA. The project drew together collaborators from research institutions around the world, including MIT
MIT is an acronym for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It is a prestigious private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts that was founded in 1861. It is organized into five Schools: architecture and planning; engineering; humanities, arts, and social sciences; management; and science. MIT's impact includes many scientific breakthroughs and technological advances.
" data-gt-translate-attributes="[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; border-left: 0px; border-image: initial; font: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; border-bottom: 1px dotted rgb(0, 0, 0) !important;">MIT’s Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, and was finally completed in 2003. Now, over two decades later, MIT Professor Jonathan Weissman and colleagues have gone beyond the sequence to present the first comprehensive functional map of genes that are expressed in human cells. The data from this project, published online on June 9, 2022, in the journal Cell, ties each gene to its job in the cell, and is the culmination of years of collaboration on the single-cell sequencing method Perturb-seq.
The data are available for other scientists to use. “It’s a big resource in the way the human genome is a big resource, in that you can go in and do discovery-based research,” says Weissman, who is also a member of the Whitehead Institute and an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. “Rather than defining ahead of time what biology you’re going to be looking at, you have this map of the genotype-phenotype relationships and you can go in and screen the database without having to do any experiments.”
CRISPR, which stands for clustered regularly-interspaced short palindromic repeats, a genome editing tool invented in 2009 made it easier than ever to edit DNA. It is easier, faster, less expensive, and more accurate than previous genetic editing methods.
The screen allowed the researchers to delve into diverse biological questions. They used it to explore the cellular effects of genes with unknown functions, to investigate the response of mitochondria to stress, and to screen for genes that cause chromosomes to be lost or gained, a phenotype that has proved difficult to study in the past. “I think this dataset is going to enable all sorts of analyses that we haven’t even thought up yet by people who come from other parts of biology, and suddenly they just have this available to draw on,” says former Weissman Lab postdoc Tom Norman, a co-senior author of the paper.
