UW-Madison, in conjunction with Marquette University, received an $8 million grant Monday to create a new Wisconsin Center of Excellence in Genomics Science.
According to a statement, the center will collaborate with different institutions throughout the nation to create technology that will help make advancements in genetics research.
The release said the Wisconsin center will specifically focus on technologies that will help discover the various proteins that bind with human DNA.
""We want to know what sets of genes are turned on and off, and how this is coordinated and controlled,"" UW-Madison chemistry professor Lloyd Smith said in a statement. ""We have DNA sequences for so many organisms, but the big question now is figuring out what they are doing.""
Smith, who is also the director of UW-Madison Genome Center, will co-direct the new center, which will work with researchers at Harvard, Yale, Stanford and a handful of other universities throughout the U.S.
