Article appeared in Drug Discovery & Development Magazine
July/August 2002

Collaboration Seeks Existence of Dark Genes

As part of the continuing quest to analyze the human genome, AnVil Inc., Burlington, Mass., will collaborate with Applied Biosystems, Foster City, Calif., to try to verify the existence of "dark genes" predicted by computers, but whose presence has not yet been confirmed. The "Dark Side" of the genome consists of those genes hidden away in the unexplored recesses of human chromosomes, and which have very few traces of evidence to confirm their existence. The number of dark genes ranges from 20 to 60% of unconfirmed genes in each of the 22 autosomal human chromosomes. The most elusive of these that have almost zero traces of evidence range from 10 to 20%. Working from the Rockville, Md.-based Celera Genomics' human genome DNA sequence, Applied Biosystems is gathering multiple lines of experimental data to confirm the prediction of "dark side" human genes. In this effort, AnVil is expected to apply its analytical and high-dimensional visualization technologies to the challenge of tracking down these unknown genes, whose discovery could greatly enhance the further understanding of the human genome. AnVil plans to provide their analytical expertise in confirming methods for gene expression analysis and subsequent integration with DNA sequencing and Applied Biosystems' Taqman data.

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