SCIENTISTS from A*Star's Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology (IMCB) are participating in an international genome project to create a collection of tissue and DNA samples for 10,000 species of animals.

As part of the research, which will benefit research and conservation efforts around the world, they will also help to sequence their genomes and analyse them to reveal their complete genetic heritage.

Led by Professor Byrappa Venkatesh, who heads the Comparative Genomics Laboratory at IMCB and who is one of the chairpersons of the Genome 10K committee, the A*Star scientists are part of an international team of about 70 leading scientists from major zoos, museums, research centres and universities in North and South America, Europe, Asia and Australia.

The project aims to build up an invaluable repository of DNA sequences for conducting comparative studies on a scale never done before, enabling scientists to understand the genetic basis of adaptive changes that occur in vertebrates and predict how animals respond to climate change, pollution, emerging diseases, and competition, and thus help in conservation efforts.

Having complete animal genomes at hand will also enable scientists to compare animal and human genomes, and reconstruct the evolutionary history of the human and other vertebrate genomes.

Nobel Laureate Dr Sydney Brenner, who is Scientific Advisor to A*Star Chairman and co-heads the IMCB laboratory with Prof Venkatesh, said: 'The most challenging intellectual problem in biology for this century will be the reconstruction of our biological past so we can understand how complex organisms such as ourselves evolved. Genomes contain information from the past - they are molecular fossils - and having sequences from vertebrates will be an essential source of rich information.'