University of Iowa researchers working on a project to map the genes of rats have won a six-million dollar grant to continue the work. Computer Engineering professor Thomas Casavant says the project is part of an effort to help researchers studying diseases in humans.Casavant compares the project to looking at an unlabeled satellite photograph and trying to add the labels.He says knowing the location of the genes in rats gives a reference for research to help humans.Casavant says there are approximatly 100-thousand genes in humans and rats. His portion of the project is to keep a database of all the findings.Casavant says they’ve mapped 30-thousand rat genes in the first two years of the project and hope to find at least 60-thousand in the next three years.
