Computing the Genome Revolution:
Biology for the 21st Century

The Problem: The Human Genome Project is charged with mapping and sequencing the 80-100,000 genes on human chromosomes, and then linking the location and structure of the genes to the functions that they control. With large-scale human genome sequencing expected to produce two to 20 million base pairs every day for the next five to ten years, there is the potential for discovering some 75 new human genes every day. This will provide the biomedical research community with a computerized catalog of the names, locations, and nucleotide sequence of the genes on the human chromosomes. Significant advances in our ability to determine the function of these genes are required to unlock all the information hidden in the sequencing and gene search output. Processing such enormous amounts of data requires extensive storage and computational capacity.
With a unique mouse genetics facility and special competencies in genetics, molecular biology, computational science, and engineering science, ORNL is well suited to address this challenge.

ORNL Solutions: In the Functional Genomics Initiative, ORNL has established a resource with significant impact on uncovering gene function on a genome-wide scale. ORNL's lab-on-a-chip technology is being combined with mass spectrometric methods to allow robust protein identification from small samples (Michael Ramsey). Computational tools developed by ORNL to aid in gene mapping and sequencing include GRAIL, which takes DNA sequences and looks for genes. A massively parallel genome sequence search engine is being developed to speed up GRAIL processing. As a follow-on, development of a protein sequence search engine will help in determining structure and function.

The ORNL Laboratory for Comparative and Functional Genomics, a DOE User Facility, addresses important biomedical research issues that hinge on functional genomics information. The Bioinformatics Support for Gene Function project is developing a system to collect and assemble information relevant to the function of newly discovered genes. The resulting catalog of gene function information will be linked to genome-wide browsing being produced by the Genome Annotation Consortium.

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