Consortium starts genome project.

A consortium of research organizations from around the world, including the National Human Genome Research Institute, is planning to sequence the genomes of at least 1,000 individuals. The idea, being called the 1000 Genomes Project, is to create a detailed and clinically relevant picture of human genetic variation. The data from the project will be made publicly available at no cost. "This new project will increase the sensitivity of disease discovery efforts across the genome fivefold and within gene regions at least 10-fold," Dr. Francis S. Collins, director of the National Human Genome Research Institute, said in a statement. "Our existing databases do a reasonably good job of cataloging variations found in at least 10 percent of a population. By harnessing the power of new sequencing technologies and novel computational methods, we hope to give biomedical researchers a genome-wide map of variation down to the 1 percent level." The project is being supported by the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Hinxton, England; the Beijing Genomics Institute; BGI Shenzhen in China; and the National Human Genome Research Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health. More information about the project is available online at www.1000genomes.org.