The complete DNA sequences for organisms ranging from humans to mice and microbes are presenting an even greater scientific challenge to understand how life's component parts function together and are influenced by environmental factors in creating and operating dynamic living systems. DOE, a key player in the genomics revolution, is poised to make important contributions to this next grand scientific quest through the Microbial Cell Project (MCP) and the proposed Genomes to Life (GTL) program.

The MCP takes a whole-genome approach to understanding the function and regulation of all genes for a single living system and the pathways in which the protein products interact. The MCP will play a leading role in GTL, DOE's major new undertaking.

The GTL will build on previous Office of Science research that includes the Human Genome Program and the Microbial Genome Program initiated in 1994. The plan for GTL is to use DNA sequences from both microbes and higher organisms, including humans, to systematically tackle questions about essential life processes conserved across species. Advanced technological and computational resources tested and modeled in the MCP will be used to identify and understand the underlying mechanisms that enable organisms to function in diverse environmental conditions.

In a sense, the MCP is advance reconnaissance for GTL, and the two programs are and will remain closely entwined.

Both GTL and the MCP contribute toward the shifting of biology to a more quantitative science, involving the collection, integration, and dissemination of diverse data and the development of appropriate tools. The two programs will formulate more high-throughput methodologies for simultaneously studying many components of living systems.