| The human genome consensus sequence has recently been anounced and published in Nature and in Science. Which is funny, because the region of chromosome 20 that contains the gene that I work on is not finished. Apparently, by "finished", they mean they have achieved something like 90% of their original goal, which was to sequence a certain percentage (not 100%) at a certain coverage, I think 5 X. Anyway, this is still very cool, and I think it really changes things in my field, and the changes are just beginning. Here are some of my favorite bioinformatics links: One of the major human genome sequencing centers, the Sanger Centre is responsible for the sequencing of several human chromosomes. Another favorite site is the National Center for Biotechnology Information and their great BLAST servers. Also, Celera has restricted access to their databases, but they contain largely the same information as in the public databases. If you've ever had trouble with that pesky Clustal W multiple sequence alignment program (yes, I realize that is like 7 people in the world, and those of you who are not into bioinformatics are getting bored, but, have patience, we will get to the kitties soon enough!!) this is the best site for running clustal analyses. Also the UK-HGMP has lots of stuff like clustal, blast etc.... So, once you've got your DNA and protein sequence, what do you do with it? Predict protein domains with Bork's SMART thingy.... There is also a great class at OSU, Biochem 770, that is all about protein engineering that is taught by Dr. Swenson. And last but not least, LITERATURE SEARCHING!!! |