Phoenix, Arizona

The US National Institutes of Health (NIH) is about to announce details of the creation of a repository for full-length human complementary DNAs (cDNAs), which will provide a source of both genetic sequences and clones for any researcher who requires them.

The Mammalian Gene Collection, which will eventually also include full-length mouse and rat cDNAs, is designed to bring together molecular data stored by individual researchers. The collection, which federal officials say has been allocated total funding of $10 million, hopes to have its Internet website functioning next month.

Organizing efforts are being led by the collection's co-directors, Robert Strausberg, assistant to the director of the National Cancer Institute, and Elise Feingold of the National Human Genome Research Institute. Officials say that support for the collection is coming from 16 of the NIH's institutions and the National Library of Medicine.

“We are building this as a resource where anyone can get clones and all information will be available to anyone,” said Strausberg. The public storage and availability of such data is being undertaken in part to combat some restrictive corporate efforts to withhold results for proprietary reasons. A full description of the Mammalian Gene Collection will appear in an article in Science.

The principal goal of the collection is to expand genetic storage from expressed sequence tags (ESTs) to full-length cDNA, said Strausberg, who revealed the plans for the repository last week at a meeting on microarrays sponsored by Nature Genetics.

More than a million ESTs are stored in GenBank, a repository operated by the National Center for Biotechnology Information. Some ESTs correspond with known genes, whereas others represent partially sequenced novel genes. Providing molecular biologists with a full cloned sequence will give researchers an expanded canvas of genetic material to work with, while ensuring wide access to the crucial information.

The ever-growing need for more molecular depth was evident at the meeting in Phoenix, where about 400 molecular biologists heard presentations on new techniques and discoveries. With microarray technology, researchers can profile the expression pattern of tens of thousands of genes in a single experiment by arraying DNA targets on glass slides or membranes and probing them with fluorescent or radioactively labelled cDNA.

As well as using microarray technology for fundamental discoveries, researchers are broadening applications into disease diagnosis and plant biology. The technology is being used to try to determine the molecular cause of diseases, helping to define new classifications of diseases and redirect treatments for some malignancies.