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Post-Genomics centre to hunt secrets of life
Housed in the university's Wellcome Trust Biocentre, the centre will work on the wealth of raw data that has emerged from the recent sequencing of the human genome and disease-causing microbes. The raw DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) sequence of a human being is an unpunctuated string of three billion letters of four symbols (A, C, T and G). The process of compiling this sequence is known as genomics. The process of mining useful information from the "book of man" is known as post-genomics.
The investigators have already discovered that malaria and tuberculosis, which kill more than five million people annually, share a common enzyme with the E.coli bacterium that causes food poisoning. The Dundee researchers confidently predict a cure for the two diseases will be available within five years.
The amount of information revealed by the human genome project and its equivalents in other organisms such as the fruit fly is remarkable. Post-genomics is the science of quarrying that information, extracting what is useful and putting it to work in understanding and combating a variety of diseases.
"That is where post-genomics is right now. New technologies to accelerate that searching process have developed so fast and what was state-of-the-art two years ago is already regarded as primitive. So, the bringing together of the four key cutting-edge technologies and crucial and the scientists to use and develop them in one centre is highly significant for what is regarded as the next major new development in the international scientific world," he added. Published on 4th August, 2002 Source: London Press Service,
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Copyright
2008, Chennai Interactive
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A new Post-Genomics and Molecular Interaction Centre has opened at Dundee University , Scotland, and will be used by scientists to combat ailments such as cancer, diabetes, malaria and tuberculosis.
Researchers at Dundee will now be able to engage with any or all of the four key technologies for which the centre provides state-of-the art laboratory facilities (bioinformatics, proteomics, DNA microarrays and molecular interactions) to tackle the most infectious diseases including many of the diseases that damage the developing world. 
When the Duke of Edinburgh opened Dundee's new centre - which cost more than 4.3 million pounds sterling to build and equip - he said it would open the door to the most significant body of scientific information yet available to mankind.
Making an analogy, the centre's Dr David Norman said: "Imagine you have just found the key to a large, undiscovered library. The rooms are dark. You are surrounded by book-lined shelves stuffed with knowledge but there are no lights, no floor plan, you don't know how the books are organised and many are in languages you cannot read. You know somewhere in that library are valuable secrets - the secrets of life and health. They might be just one sentence long. However, how do you
find them? "
