Chimp code finally revealed
By: Agencies
September 1, 2005 London: The genetic code of our closest living relative, the chimpanzee, has been sequenced and analysed by an international team of researchers.
The scientists say the information is a milestone in the quest to discover what sets us apart from other animals.
A comparison shows chimps and humans to be almost 99 per cent identical in the most important areas of their “life codes”.
The team tells Nature magazine that future research will tease out the significance of the few differences.
The study was undertaken by an international group called the Chimpanzee Sequencing and Analysis Consortium, which was made up of 67 scientists at 23 research institutions in the US, Germany, Italy, Israel and Spain.
Fundamentals
The work provides a catalogue of the genetic differences that have arisen since humans and chimpanzees diverged from a common ancestor some six million years ago.
“As our closest living evolutionary relatives, chimps are especially suited to teaching us about ourselves,” said the study’s senior author, Robert Waterston. Email this article Print this article Post / View comments Rate this story: 1 2 3 4 5
The Chimpanzee Sequencing and Analysis Consortium, made up of 67 scientists from the United States, Israel, Italy, Germany, and Spain, has released a draft version of its report on the chimpanzee genome in the September 1 edition of the scientific journal ''Nature''.  The researchers mapped 94% of the genome.  The report centers on comparisons between chimpanzee and human DNA.