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| American biologist James Watson and English physicist Francis Crick and their contribution to the discovery of the DNA structure, photo and article in Nature |
Scientists unveiled the results of a massive international project Wednesday that they say debunks the notion that most of our genetic code is made up of so-called junk DNA.
The ENCODE project (Encyclopedia of DNA elements), which involved hundreds of researchers in dozens of labs, also produced what some scientists are saying is like Google Maps for the human genome.
"So the most amazing thing that we found was that we can ascribe some kind of biochemical activity to 80 percent of the genome. And this really kind of debunks the idea that there's a lot of junk DNA or really if there is any DNA that we would really call junk," NHGRI's Feingold said.
What has been called junk DNA is actually teeming with an intricate web of molecular switches that play crucial roles in regulating genes. The ENCODE project scientists found at least 4 million of these regulatory regions so far.
The ENCODE project (Encyclopedia of DNA elements), which involved hundreds of researchers in dozens of labs, also produced what some scientists are saying is like Google Maps for the human genome.
"So the most amazing thing that we found was that we can ascribe some kind of biochemical activity to 80 percent of the genome. And this really kind of debunks the idea that there's a lot of junk DNA or really if there is any DNA that we would really call junk," NHGRI's Feingold said.
What has been called junk DNA is actually teeming with an intricate web of molecular switches that play crucial roles in regulating genes. The ENCODE project scientists found at least 4 million of these regulatory regions so far.
NPR: Scientists Unveil 'Google Maps' For Human Genome, Rob Stein
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