B.C. Team Cracks SARS Riddle

My local paper reports today that scientists with the B.C.Cancer Agency have cracked the SARS genetic code. Dick Thompson of the World Health Organization called it “an extraordinary step” since doctors will be able to diagnose people more quickly and researchers will need the code to develop a vaccine. The Vancouver team, working at the Michael Smith Genome Sciences Centre, typically investigates the cancer genome, but Dr. Caroline Astell (the project leader) and Dr. Marco Marra (centre director) took SARS on as a challenge. The work involved about 30 researchers at the Centre. The genetic sequence is posted on the web so that other researchers can use it to beat SARS.