Wellcome Trust and drug giants fund gene marker database

A two year, £28m ($44.8m) initiative to create a high quality map of genetic markers, which will be available to everyone without charge, has been launched by the Wellcome Trust together with a group of leading pharmaceutical companies and academic centres.

The collaborative effort, called the SNP Consortium, will seek to identify and analyse single nucleotide polymorphisms involved in disease processes so that safer and more effective drugs can be developed.

Single nucleotide polymorphisms, sometimes called “snips,” are common variations that occur …