“The University of Washington’s ENCODE project stands for “ENCyclopedia Of DNA Elements.” The on/off switches controlling genes were encrypted within the remaining genome. Without these switches, named “regulatory DNA,” genes are inert. (In the past, this was trivialized as “junk DNA”)”
“ENCODE combined the efforts of 442 scientists in 32 labs in the UK, US, Spain, Singapore and Japan. They generated and analyzed over 15 trillion bytes of raw data – all of which is now publicly available. The study used around 300 years’ worth of computer time studying 147 tissue types to determine what turns specific genes on and off, and how that ‘switch’ differs between cell types.”
Dr Ewan Birney, a Cambridge scientist who helped lead the project, was quoted in the UK Telegraph: “This idea of junk DNA – we always knew must be something more than protein coding genes, things that switch them on and off. But I really was not expecting this number and density of switches. It feels like a jungle out there. It is not a neat orderly place. It is absolutely full of life.”
thanks to Frank Scavo for pointer
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