Human, Mouse, Rat . . . What’s Next?
Scientists lobby for a chimpanzee genome project
By John Travis
What if some explorers of a remote region in the world stumbled across a lost colony whose members are immune to major human illnesses such as AIDS, Alzheimer’s disease, malaria, and even cancer? Imagine the rush by biomedical researchers to tease out the secrets behind the good fortune of such beings.
The colony’s advantage might stem from habits of nutrition, or lifestyle—maybe a vegetarian diet or regular physical exercise. Yet perhaps the immunity enjoyed by the colony’s residents rests, at least in part, upon their subtle genetic differences from people in the rest of the world. Investigators would no doubt eagerly start comparing the DNA sequences of these remarkable individuals with those of other populations.