Leprosy Genome Decoded

xpccx writes "There's an article on Wired about a team of Anglo-French scientists that have "...sequenced the genetic map of the leprosy bacterium which could point to new ways to diagnose and treat the disfiguring disease that strikes 700,000 people every year." It's interesting to note that the scientists discovered that "...the bacterium that causes leprosy seems to have lost nearly half of its nonessential genes, more than any other organisms studied so far." This research was published in Nature."