ROCKVILLE, Md., Feb. 22 (UPI) -- The genomes of more than 2,000 human and avian flu viruses have been sequenced in the United States and are now available to scientists worldwide.
The work was done by the Influenza Genome Sequencing Project, based at The Institute for Genomic Research in Rockville, Md. The project was started in 2004 and received funding from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, part of the National Institutes of Health. It is currently directed by David Spiro and Claire Fraser at NIH and Elodie Ghedin at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. The project's data is available to the scientific community and the public through GenBank, an Internet-accessible database maintained by the National Center for Biotechnology Information at the NIH's National Library of Medicine.
NIH spokespeople said technological advances have enabled the ongoing project to sequence more than 200 viral genomes per month, and there are no plans to terminate it in the foreseeable future.
"This information will help scientists understand how influenza viruses evolve and spread," said NIH Director Elias A. Zerhouni at a news conference where completion of the 2,000-genome milestone was announced. "It will aid in the development of new flu vaccines, therapies, and diagnostics."
