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Scientists have created the world’s most detailed genetic map, culminating years of research into the DNA of African Americans and how genetic changes contribute to the risk of disease.

David Reich, an associate member of the ӳý of MIT and Harvard, and colleagues developed the map after analyzing the DNA of 30,000 African Americans. Reich, who is also an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School’s Department of Genetics, collaborated with Simon Myers, a former postdoctoral fellow at the ӳý and now a lecturer at Oxford University.

Cara Fisher

Today, the cancer samples we have been following will go from tangible pieces of tissue to something a bit more abstract: invisible strands of pure DNA. In the process, the samples will be whirled and spun through laboratory machinery, incubated over night, and washed repeatedly with different chemical substances. The final product of all of this will be large droplets of clear liquid at the bottom of tiny, plastic Eppendorf tubes.

Back in May, we about Trinity, a suite of tools that assembles transcripts, or bits of RNA that have been copied from a cell’s genome, into a “transcriptome,” even without a reference genome handy.