£100m project to map DNA

Prime Minister David Cameron has said a £100 million investment in a DNA database will help to crack cancer and put Britain at the forefront of biotechnology.

He said: "We want to crack cancer and the DNA database can help us to do that. But we also want to keep Britain at the absolute forefront of biotechnology and the pharmaceutical industry. We can be a real world leader in this."

Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt said the DNA mapping project was designed for medical research.

He told Sky News: "That will enable us to make groundbreaking discoveries about how cancer works; about who is susceptible to cancer; how we can head it off; what treatments might work."

"It's something that I hope will mean we can avoid heartache for thousands of people every year who lose a loved-one prematurely because they get a cancer that we simply don't know how to deal with."

Sir John Bell, government adviser on genetics and professor of medical sciences at Oxford University, said genetics can deliver medicines to patients and help understand cancer.

He said: “There are some people who have a genetic predisposition to cancer, they tend to be relatively rare.

"There are a number of cancers – quite rare – where there is a predictability issue. At the moment we are not very good at identifying those."

"It’s not the main point, it’s about being able to manage people’s cancers better and more precisely,” he said in an interview with the BBC's Today programme.

Gene mapping is graphic representation of the arrangement of a gene or a DNA sequence on a chromosome.

A genetic map is used to locate and identify the gene or group of genes that determines a particular inherited trait.

Locating and identifying genes in a genetic map is called genetic mapping.

• The £100 million will go on training genetic scientists, mapping patients' DNA, and creating systems for handling the information.
• The project that first sequenced a human genome in 2000 cost around £500m, but technical advances mean the bill has dropped dramatically to under £1,000 per person.

• Officials believe allocating NHS funds to mapping 100,000 people's codes will drive down costs even further by "priming the pump".
• Patients will be asked for permission before their DNA is sequenced, and data will be anonymised before it is stored.

• The Government also announced that £100 million of new science funding allocated in the Autumn Statement would go to life sciences.
• The money will help build research capabilities for synthetic biology, facilities for manufacturing cell and biologic medicines such as antibodies and vaccines.

Up to 100,000 patients with cancer and rare diseases are to have their DNA fully mapped as part of a drive to revolutionise NHS treatment.

The Government has earmarked £100 million for the project in England over the next three to five years in a bid to develop new tests and better care that could save thousands of lives.