Media

Nature to Feature the International HapMap Project

18 Dec 2003

 

The International HapMap Project will be featured in Nature magazine, released on December 18. This is the first official publication of the Project in an international science journal.

The International HapMap Project is a collaboration among scientists in the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, Canada, China (including Hong Kong and Taiwan), and Nigeria. The Hong Kong HapMap Group is responsible for constructing a HapMap of 2% of the human genome. The Group is led by Professor Lap-Chee Tsui, Chair of the Steering Committee of HKU's Genome Research Centre and the University's Vice-Chancellor. Other members of the Group include Professor Mary Miu-yee Waye from Department of Biochemistry, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, and Professor Jeffrey Tze-fei Wong from Department Biochemistry, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

"I am glad the scientists at the three universities are working together on this large-scale project. This will not only allow us to contribute to the international consortium and gain valuable experience in high-throughput genotyping experiments but will also provide us with the technology platform to tackle common health problems in the region," said the Principal Investigator of the project, Professor Lap-chee Tsui.

"The Hong Kong HapMap Group will have to produce results of 10 million genotyping experiments by the end of September 2004. We need a lot of automation and high throughput technologies. I am happy to report that the Group has already demonstrated its readiness by passing the Quality Control requirements of the International HapMap Consortium about two months ago."

The goal of the International HapMap Project is to develop a haplotype map of the human genome, the HapMap, which will describe the common patterns of human DNA sequence variants and to make this information freely available in the public domain. The HapMap is expected to be a key resource for researchers to use in finding genes that affect health, disease, and responses to drugs and environmental factor.

Most common diseases, such as diabetes, cancer, stroke, heart disease, depression, and asthma, are affected by many genes and environmental factors. Although any two unrelated people are the same at about 99.9% of their DNA sequence, the remaining 0.1% is important because it contains the genetic variants that influence how people differ in their risk of disease or their response to drugs. Discovering the DNA sequence variants that contribute to common disease risks offers one of the best opportunities for understanding the complex causes of diseases in humans.

Professor Tsui also indicated that the establishment of various technology platforms in this Project would enhance the capabilities of local tertiary institutions, and enable researchers in Hong Kong to study and gain new knowledge of the genetic variations among specific sub-groups of Chinese populations.

The Project couldn't have been possible without the support of the HKSAR government. The University Grants Committee and the Innovation and Technology Fund have provided HK$25 million and HK$10 million respectively to support this project.

For media enquiries, please contact HKU's External Relations Office Miss Polo Leung at 2859 2600.