The Center's research initiatives involve basic and clinical research projects and the development of resources that benefit Northwestern investigators and the genetics research community at large.
The NUgene Project is the Center's gene banking initiative that will help researchers use information from the human genome to unravel the genetic cause of many diseases. NUgene collects and stores DNA samples and associated health-care information from patients of Northwestern-affiliated hospitals and clinics.
Northwestern Memorial Foundation MD-Scientist Fellowship in Genetic Medicine
This annual fellowship competition is offered exclusively to young physician-researchers who are preparing themselves for a career in acadmic medicine. Fellowship awardees are engaged in genetics research in laboratories of CGM faculty members who have clinical relationships with NMH.
dictyBase: an on-line informatics resource
An NIH grant awarded through the CGM supports the development of a genome database
for Dictyostelium discoideum, a NIH-supported model organism. dictyBase
provides integrated access to the annotated Dictyostelium
genome sequence, curated literature, and functional genomics data through
their website.
Disease
Ontology Project
The Disease Ontology Project seeks to create a comprehensive hierarchical controlled vocabulary to represent human diseases. The terms in this controlled vocabulary will be used to annotate genes that contribute to human diseases and to facilitate data mining of medical records for research purposes.
The Gene Ontology Consortium is a project
to define a consistent vocabulary to annotate genome sequences. Members of
the Center are active participants in the development of this ontology.