Griffith University's Dr Christine Wells is one of just a handful of women scientists in the global FANTOM consortium which has announced a major breakthrough in unraveling the mammalian genome.
The consortium comprises researchers from Japan , Singapore , Sweden , South Africa , Italy , Germany , Greece , Switzerland , the UK , the United States and Australia . Together with Griffith 's Dr Wells and a group of University of Queensland's Scientists including Professor David Hume, Professor John Mattick and Dr Sean Grimmond, FANTOM has published its research in the prestigious journal Science.
Dr Wells said while genome projects identified, in effect, the alphabet of DNA, it has taken until now for scientists to understand how to arrange the letters into words. By measuring the RNA messages that cells produce, the FANTOM project has captured the words used by those cells.
“The information that we have gathered is an annotation exercise of huge importance – we are learning the genetic language used by cells, discovering how to read the words, construct and punctuate the sentences that create a story unique to every cell, tissue and individual,” Dr Wells explained.
“What we have additionally uncovered is that the biology story is always changing with new nuances, accents and dialects. The order of the letters in the words remains essentially the same in individuals, and even between species, but the way that the words are used can vary dramatically.