Reading the Book of Life
by David Pescovitz
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Eugene Myers was recently elected to the National Academy of Engineering, one of the highest professional honors for an American engineer.
Courtesy
Gene Myers
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In February 2001, Eugene Myers watched proudly as Celera Genomics announced a completed draft of the human genome sequence. It was Myers's computer algorithms that enabled Celera Genomics to sequence and assemble all three billion letters in the human genome in just nine months. The problem now is that nobody can read it. The next step is to identify the small percentage of active genes and determine how the information contained within the genome leads to life.
"We have the Rosetta Stone but we don't know what it says," explains
Myers, former vice president of Informatics Research at Celera Genomics
who in January joined UC Berkeley as a professor in the Department
of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences.
Myers is a pioneer in comparative genomics, analyzing the DNA sequences of multiple species to find similarities and "puzzle out what's actually encoded in the genome." Understanding how genes are expressed in an organism is an integral part of Myers's grand research goal at UC Berkeley.
"I want to decode the cell," he says. "What's exciting is that we're tantalizingly close right now."
According to Myers, the first step toward this major milestone is
sequencing and assembling the genomes of several species of fly.
In 2000, Celera and UC Berkeley researchers collaborated on the
sequencing of Drosophila melanogaster, the fruit fly. Studying
a half-dozen different species of Drosophila that diverged at various
points in evolutionary history and pinpointing conserved regions
between them will lead to much more accurate identification of genes
and regulatory signals. That knowledge could in turn aid in the
fundamental understanding of how these genes interact and coordinate
their activities within the cell. Because a fly has counterparts
for many genes known to be involved in human disease, insight into
the intricacies of Drosphila's biological system would likely speed
the discovery of genetic cures for human maladies.
Once researchers computationally identify what they believe to be an organism's essential genes and their purposes, they must verify those suspicions through experiments in a biology laboratory. Myers's computational innovations could enable biologists to more accurately hone in on specific genes before they enter the wet lab.
"If you can get the computational part to work better, you'll spend less time and less money in the laboratory," he says.
In the next two to three years, Myers hopes the research he's undertaking with his colleagues at UC Berkeley will lead to a deep understanding of the fruit fly's biology at a molecular level.
"I'm not a biologist," Myers says. "I'm a technologist trying to figure out how to develop technology to help us exhaustively explore these biological systems."
Gene Myers's Home Page
"Gene Myers, computer algorithm pioneer in human genome sequencing, to join UC Berkeley faculty" by Sarah Yang (Media Relations)
"UC Berkeley collaboration with Celera Genomics concludes with publication of the genome of the fruit fly" by Robert Sanders (Media Relations)
"Computer science professor Eugene Myers elected to National Academy of Engineering" by Media Relations
Lab Notes is published online by the Public Affairs Office of the UC Berkeley College of Engineering. The Lab Notes mission is to illuminate groundbreaking
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Writer, Researcher: David Pescovitz
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Updated 2/28/03.
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