List of Events in NHGRI History - 2005

2005

• February 7, 2005: The International HapMap Consortium announces plans to create an even more powerful map of human genetic variation than originally envisioned. The map will accelerate the discovery of genes related to common diseases, such as asthma, cancer, diabetes and heart disease.
• March 6, 2005: As part of the Human Genome Project, NIH hails the first comprehensive analysis of the sequence of the human X chromosome, saying that this provides sweeping new insights into the evolution of sex chromosomes and the biological differences between males and females.
• August 8, 2005: NHGRI announces it has awards grants totaling more than $32 million to advance the development of innovative sequencing technologies intended to reduce the cost of DNA sequencing and expand the use of genomics in biomedical research and health care.
• August 9, 2005: In a surprising development, a research team led by NHGRI finds that a class of experimental anti-cancer drugs shows promise in laboratory studies for treating the fatal genetic disorder that causes premature aging.
• August 1, 2005: The first comprehensive comparison of the genetic blueprints of humans and chimpanzees shows our closest living relatives share perfect identity with 96 percent of our DNA sequence.
• October 5, 2005: The National Institutes of Health (NIH) announces contracts that will give researchers unprecedented access to two private collections of knockout mice, providing valuable models for the study of human disease and laying the groundwork for a public, genome-wide library of knockout mice.
• October 6, 2005: The International HapMap Consortium publishes a comprehensive catalog of human genetic variation, a landmark achievement that is already accelerating the search for genes involved in common diseases, such as asthma, diabetes, cancer and heart disease.
• November 5, 2005: As part of the U.S. Surgeon General's Family Health Initiative, an updated version of the computerized tool designed to help families gather their health information is unveiled.
• December 3, 2005: The National Cancer Institute (NCI) and the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) launches a comprehensive effort to accelerate understanding of the molecular basis of cancer through the application of genome analysis technologies, especially large-scale genome sequencing.