ENCODE Consortium Findings Challenge Established Views on Human Genome: Surprises in Organization and Function of Genetic Elements

Michael Snyder who mapped RNA transcripts, and binding sites for transcription factors and chromosomal proteins using DNA microarrays and ChIP-chip assays. An international research consortium today published a set of papers that promise to reshape our understanding of how the human genome functions. The findings challenge the traditional view of our genetic blueprint as a tidy collection of independent genes, pointing instead to a complex network in which genes, along with regulatory elements and other types of DNA sequences that do not code for proteins, interact in overlapping ways not yet fully understood.