EU, US and Canada announce joint genetics collaboration
The European Commission, the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Genome Canada have announced a global collaborative research effort which aims to increase our understanding of the role of genes in a range of diseases. The initiative, which is the biggest collaborative research effort after the Human Genome Project, has a budget of €56.6 million, of which €13 million comes from the 'Life Sciences, Genomics and Biotechnology for Health' thematic programme under the Sixth Framework Programme (FP6). What makes this project special is the high level of collaboration between the funding agencies as well as the researchers. The global initiative brings together three projects which are studying the effects of mutations on specific genes in mice: the EU-funded European Conditional Mouse Mutagenesis Programme (EUCOMM), the Canadian-funded North American Conditional Mouse Mutagenesis Project (NorCOMM) and the US-funded Knockout Mouse Project (KOMP). Many genes have been linked to diseases and conditions such as cancer, heart disease, diabetes and obesity. However, further research is needed into the role of these genes in the disease, and as they share 99% of their genetic make-up with humans, mice make an ideal organism for studying human genetic diseases. Furthermore, techniques have been developed which allow researchers to 'knock-out' specific genes in mice at both the tissue and the whole body level and at different phases of mouse development. The researchers aim to systematically disrupt each of the 20,000 genes found in mice to determine each gene's role in development and use the information to unravel the detailed genetic networks underlying disease. A steering committee made up of the scientists leading each of the projects and representatives from the funding agencies will coordinate the work to ensure complementarity and avoid duplication. The scientists and funding agencies have also agreed that the mutant resources generated by the three projects will be made freely available to the scientific community. Other teams working in similar mouse mutagenesis programmes are invited to join the initiative, on the condition that they also agree to make their research results freely accessible. 'International scientific collaboration is in the interests of us all; pooling knowledge will increase our chance to make discoveries that can benefit human health,' commented EU Science and Research Commissioner Janez Potocnik. 'There is so much we still don't know about the effect of genes on the development of our major diseases. Research like this gives hope to many of those suffering serious illnesses and their families.' 'It is exciting that the NIH Knockout Mouse Project will be working hand-in-hand with other international efforts,' added NIH Director Elias A. Zerhouni. 'This is scientific teamwork at its best.'
Countries
Canada, United States