Scientists at the UW and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center are coordinating research studies on whole-genome sequences in an effort to better understand the relationship between genes and diseases.

The National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) awarded a four-year, $4.8 million contract to the UW and the Hutchinson Center to organize several different whole-genome studies from universities nationwide. All whole-genome studies compare gene sequences of healthy individuals to those with diseases.

Leila Gray, the UW Medical Center’s news and community relations spokeswoman, praised the Hutchinson Center for its bio-statistical analysis.

“[The Hutchinson Center] is good at receiving and analyzing information, and most of what your genes are, is information,” she said. “This is one of the reasons for why they received this grant.”

A new coordinating center will provide data and advice to specific disease studies conducted at different universities, including Harvard University, which is studying genes and environment initiatives in type 2 diabetes, and Northwestern University, which is researching the correlation between maternal metabolism and infant birth weight.

“This is the first step in determining the genetic basis of disease and is necessary for the development of therapies and eventual cures,” said Lon Cardon, a member of the human biology division at the Hutchinson Center and professor of biostatistics at the UW, in a press release by news.org.

Most of the previous research on gene sequencing has focused primarily on the genes themselves, which make up merely 2 percent of the entire whole-genome sequence.

“Basically, the genome is the entire sequence of DNA that any human being carries,” said Larry Gallagher of the UW’s department of genome sciences. “That’s around three billion different sequences, but only a small percentage are [coded]. The rest of the sequence, the non-genes, control when those genes are being turned on and off.”

Not much is known about non-genes, Gallagher said, which is why whole-genome studies are so important.

The success of both the Human Genome Project, which identified and determined the sequences of the three billion chemical base pairs that make up human DNA, and the recent international HapMap study, which looked at genetic variation among different human populations, helped to further the cause of whole-genome studies.

[Reach reporter Arla Shephard at news@thedaily.washington.edu.]