SARS genome chip available to scientists: the NIAID hopes that widespread access to the SARS genome chip will catalyse research into effective treatments for the virus.

The NIAID hopes that widespread access to the SARS genome chip will catalyse research into effective treatments for the virus

The US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) hopes to spur on research into severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) by making available a SARS genome “chip” free of charge to researchers around the world.

The SARS array, which consists of the 29 700 DNA base pairs of the SARS coronavirus, was designed from data from institutes in the USA, Canada, and Asia that had sequenced the complete SARS coronavirus genome.

“Through this collaboration, NIAID has quickly responded to make this genomic resource widely available to the SARS research community”, said NIAID director Anthony Fauci. “This powerful tool will help us better understand this newly recognised pathogen and its spread, and will provide new leads in our search for effective SARS countermeasures.”

Announcing the decision on June 23, the government agency said it hoped the SARS array would enable researchers to construct a “family tree” of the SARS coronaviruses; to establish which SARS strains are most dangerous; and to trace how the virus evolves as it spreads to different populations.

The SARS array distribution programme will be coordinated by the NIAID's Pathogen Functional Genomics Resource Center (PFGRC)—a centralised facility that provides researchers with the resources needed to do functional genomics studies on pathogens for which genomic sequence information is available.

Researchers can request the SARS array through the NIAID's websire (see http://www.niaid.nih.gov/dmid/genomes/pfgrc). Proposals to obtain the SARS array are being accepted and reviewed continually, and the PFGRC will provide up to 20 arrays per request.