Human Genome Central

Spring board for Human genome data

From: The International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium

In the context of the completion of the "Working Draft" of the Human Genome Sequence by the public Human Genome Project, here are some URLs that are good starting points for working with the data.

The vast majority of the human genome is now publicly available. About 25% of the genome is in finished form, while the great majority of the remainder is in draft form. A publication on the working draft will be submitted later this year.

As with other organisms, the full primary source data is available in each of three public databases: Genbank, EMBL and DDBJ. The information is being searched and analyzed by tens of thousands of scientists in academia and industry.

Still, it is a daunting and time-consuming task for users to directly analyze the primary source data. Many users would like access to ancillary information and tools that provide an ongoing picture of the genome that is both comprehensive and comprehensible. Such information includes the overlaps between clones; the correct genomic location of each clone; an integrated genomic sequence that merges the individual clones; and annotation of gene content.

In fact, such resources have been developed and are freely available - but they are not widely known.

For ease of access, we have created a master web site called "Human Genome Central" containing a brief listing of links to some of the most useful public resources; further links to additional sites can be found within them. The web sites will be regularly updated with new information.

Human Genome Central can be found on both the NCBI and EBI sites at:

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/genome/central
www.ensembl.org/genome/central