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07/03/07 - Scientific Foundation for GE Being Challenged

From http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/07/03/business/biotech.php.

The $73.5 billion global biotech business may soon have to grapple with a discovery that calls into question the scientific principles on which it was founded. Last month, a consortium of scientists published findings that challenge the traditional view of the way genes function. The exhaustive, four-year effort was organized by the United States National Human Genome Research Institute. The results, published in Nature, are the culmination of a $42 million, five-year project called ENCODE (ENCyclopaedia Of DNA Elements) involving 80 different scientific teams in 11 countries.

To their surprise, researchers found that the human genome might not be a "tidy collection of independent genes" after all, with each sequence of DNA linked to a single function, like a predisposition to diabetes or heart disease. Instead, genes appear to operate in a complex network, and interact and overlap with one another and with other components in ways not yet fully understood. According to the institute, these findings will challenge scientists "to rethink some long-held views about what genes are and what they do."