This site contains information derived from
the ENCODE project at NHGRI. Additional
background information
on the ENCODE project can be found on the
NHGRI
website. There is also an Ensembl version of the
ENCODE resource page available.
In April 2003, the sequence of the human genome was
completed, but much remains to be done. To maximize the
information contained in the sequence, the identity and
precise location of all of the functional elements in the
genome will have to be determined. These include promoters
and other transcriptional regulatory sequences, and
determinants of chromosome structure and function such as
origins of replication. This project is assembling a
comprehensive encyclopedia of all of these features in a
selected 1% of the genome to better understand human
biology, to predict potential disease risks, and to
stimulate the development of new therapies to prevent and
treat disease.
The NHGRI has created a highly interactive public
research consortium to carry out a pilot project for
testing and comparing existing and new methods to identify
functional sequences in DNA. The aim is to examine a
diverse set of techniques, technologies and strategies to
identify all the functional elements in defined regions of
human genomic sequence, to identify gaps in our ability to
annotate genomic sequence, and to consider the suitability
of such methods to be scaled up for an effort to analyze
the entire human genome.
There are several roles for the UCSC Genome Bioinformatics
group in this work. We manage the official repository of
the sequence-related data for the consortium and support
the coordination of data submission, storage, retrieval,
and visualization. We also have a special interest in
comparative genomics, and are providing additional
resources for the ENCODE groups working in this area.
We'd like to thank NHGRI for their support of this
project, and to the various contributors of annotations
and analyses. The team at UCSC that develops and
maintains this ENCODE site is made up of
Daryl Thomas,
Kate Rosenbloom,
Jim Kent,
and the UCSC Genome Bioinformatics
staff.
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