List of Events in NHGRI History - 2006

2006

• February 8, 2006: The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announces the creation of two new, closely related initiatives to speed up research on the causes of common diseases such as asthma, arthritis and Alzheimer's disease.
• March 9, 2006: A multi-institution team of experts, coordinated by geneticists from the NHGRI, supports efforts to identify more than 70 bodies still unidentified in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
• July 8, 2006: Researchers have found that genetic alterations originally identified in people suffering from a rare disease may also be an important risk factor for the second most common form of dementia among the elderly.
• July 4, 2006: Researchers at the National Institutes of Health Chemical Genomics Center (NCGC) – an NHGRI Affiliated Center – develop a new screening approach that can profile compounds in large chemical libraries more accurately and precisely than standard methods, speeding the production of data that can be used to probe biological activities and identify leads for drug discovery.
• August 21, 2006: The National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), announces grants totaling $54 million over five years to establish one new Center of Excellence in Genomic Science (CEGS) and continue support for two existing centers.
• September 13, 2006: The National Cancer Institute (NCI) and the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) announce the first three cancers that will be studied in the pilot phase of The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA). The cancers to be studied in the TCGA Pilot Project are lung, brain (glioblastoma) and ovarian.
• October 4, 2006: The National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) announces the latest round of grant awards totaling more than $13 million to speed the development of innovative sequencing technologies that reduce the cost of DNA sequencing and expand the use of genomics in medical research and health care.
• October 16, 2006: The National Cancer Institute (NCI) and the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) announce another two of the components of The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) Pilot Project, a three-year, $100 million collaboration to test the feasibility of using large-scale genome analysis technologies to identify important genetic changes involved in cancer.
• November 15, 2006: New Family Health History projects focus on Alaska Native, Appalachian communities. As part of the effort to educate all Americans about the importance of knowing their family health histories, Acting Surgeon General Kenneth P. Moritsugu, M.D., M.P.H., announces two new outreach projects involving Alaska Native and urban Appalachian communities.