Genetic Mapping of Mouse Brain Complete

Vicissitude writes "A 3-D reference atlas of the genes that are active in the mouse brain is now complete. The atlas was declared finished on Tuesday, although scientists have been using it regularly for more than a year. The project was started in 2002 with $100 million from Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen." From the article: "'Since mice and humans share more than 90 percent of genes, the Allen Brain Atlas has enormous potential for understanding human neurological diseases and disorders affecting more than 50 million Americans each year,' the Allen Institute for Brain Science said. These include Alzheimer's disease, which affects 4.5 million Americans, autism, which may occur in one in every 175 births, epilepsy, which affects 2.7 million Americans, schizophrenia and Parkinson's disease."

Comments

Now for the real work...

[BWJones]

Now the gene mapping is finished, the real work can now begin.... I only half jokingly say this as all of the physiology needs to be performed on a baseline dataset now. It's interesting that a whole host of talents and technologies that were eclipsed by molecular biology and genetic engineering are now coming back into vogue. Technologies like electrophysiology and electron microscopy are now in hot demand.