An Oregon Health & Science University-led development of a technique for identifying control elements that drive the expression of genes in brain cells could unleash the disease-fighting potential of the much-hailed human genome. Scientists at the OHSU Vollum Institute, which headed the multidisciplinary study appearing in the Dec. 29 edition of the journal Cell, are calling the approach a significant advance in understanding the genome. The Vollum’s director, Richard Goodman, M.D., Ph.D., professor of cell and developmental biology, and biochemistry and molecular biology, OHSU School of Medicine, said the technique could give a critical boost to the new era of genomic discovery set forth when the Human Genome Project was completed early last year.
