A web tool lets scientists browse the human genome at any scale
In short: Researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz built a web-based browser that lets scientists view any region of the human genome at any zoom level. The tool displays dozens of annotation tracks together, including gene predictions, sequence alignments, cross-species comparisons and known genetic variants, so researchers can compare many kinds of genomic data side by side without needing specialist software.
The browser stores its tracks in a MySQL database and lets users search by text or sequence to jump straight to a region of interest, with links out to further sequence details and external databases.
About half of the tracks come from UCSC's own analysis of public sequence data, and the rest from outside collaborators, so its scope depends on what data groups choose to contribute and share.
Why it matters: A single web tool made it dramatically easier for scientists worldwide to view and search the human genome.
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Sources
- Summary by Intellect · source: Research: Kent et al. (2002). The human genome browser at UCSC. Genome research.
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