A SET of techniques developed in California could be the Rosetta Stone that
lets us translate the human genome’s hieroglyphics. The techniques could show
what the thousands of new genes revealed by the sequencing of the human genome
do, and revolutionise the way we view proteins, the researchers say.
To get a handle on the function of the protein coded for by a newly
discovered gene, biologists look for similar genes whose function is already
known in other organisms. But the new human genome sequence has thrown up
thousands of genes with no known counterparts, leaving researchers in the dark.…
