patth@ccnysci.UUCP (Patt Haring) (06/01/89)
Ported to USENET from UNITEX NETWORK via UNITEX BBS: 201-795-0733 We want ** your ** news bulletins: (FAX: 212-787-1726 : Attention: James Waldron, Ph.D.) or ...!uunet!rutgers!rubbs!unitex or unitex@rubbs.FIDONET.ORG To subscribe to the UNITEX mailing list, send your subscription request to: unitex-request@rubbs.UUCP *COMPUTER CHIP MAY SPEED GENE ANALYSIS A newly developed computer chip may greatly accelerate the process of deciphering the human genome, allowing researchers to make sense of the information contained in its myriad combinations of nucleotide building blocks. TRW, Inc. originally designed the chip for the Defense Department to extract important information from the mountain of cables and reports it receives each day. After hearing a lecture on the mathematics of genetics, TRW's B. K. Richards decided the chip also would be useful for seeking patterns in DNA that give clues to the location and function of the approximately 100,000 genes on human chromosomes--a task that had previously been the domain of supercomputers, but which the new chip could turn into a benchtop operation for a fraction of the cost. Richards collaborated with Tim Hunkapillar, a computer scientist at Caltech (California Institute of Technology) and designed a DNA analysis system based on the chip. They took their design to Applied Biosystems, which contracted for exclusive license to the system's hardware (the accompanying software will be made available to researchers, free of charge, by Caltech). Los Alamos National Laboratory investigator Daniel Davison used the system to compare a gene consisting of 10,000 nucleotide bases with a 30 million-base reference file at Los Alamo's Genbank, a DNA database. The task took one day using a Cray-2 supercomputer, 10 days with a VAX supercomputer, and just 10 minutes using the Applied Biosystems hardware, he said. DNA analysis can be performed at about the same speed with the Connection computer, a massive parallel processing machine made by Thinking Machines Inc., but, in addition to its unwieldy nature, it costs about $2 million, compared with an estimated $40,000 for the Applied Biosystems hardware. ``For [DNA analysis],'' said TRW's Kwang-I Yu, inventor of the chip used in the system, ``it has much more computing power than a supercomputer.'' However, the initial test runs have been performed on prototypes and a commercial product is thought to be two years away. * Origin: UNITEX --> Toward a United Species (1:107/501) -- unitex - via FidoNet node 1:107/520 UUCP: ...!rutgers!rubbs!unitex ARPA: unitex@rubbs.FIDONET.ORG -- Patt Haring | My other site is a Public Access UN*X rutgers!cmcl2!ccnysci!patth | system: The Big Electric Cat patth@ccnysci.BITNET | 1-212-879-9031 patth@dasys1.UUCP