Genome Therapeutics Joins Human Genome Project

Genome Therapeutics Corp. (GTC; Waltham, MA) has been named as one of the nationally funded centers of the international Human Genome Project, the full-scale effort to sequence the human genome. The company will receive $15 million in funding over the next three years from the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) for work conducted at the GTC Sequencing Center.

In the initial phase of this project, the GTC Sequencing Center will be coordinating closely with the Sanger Centre, supported in the United Kingdom by the Wellcome Trust, to sequence regions of chromosome 10. This project will begin immediately, with $5 million of funding guaranteed over the first twelve months.

The goal of the consortium is to produce a working draft covering at least 90% of the human genome sequence by the spring of next year. This draft will serve as the basis for the finishing process, which involves closing gaps and correcting errors, leading to completion of the final, continuous human DNA sequence no later than 2003. The largest U.S. participants in the consortium include the Whitehead Institute, Washington University, Baylor College of Medicine, and the Joint Genome Institute of the U.S. Department of Energy.

Genome Therapeutics Corp. is engaged in the field of genomics—the identification and functional characterization of genes. The GTC Sequencing Center provides commercial, academic and governmental scientists with access to industrial scale DNA sequencing and sequence variation detection.

For more information: Robert J. Hennessey, President and CEO, Genome Therapeutics Corp., 100 Beaver St., Waltham, MA 02453. Tel: 781-398-2300. Fax: 781-893-8277.