Other Species' Genes May Reveal More About Our Own

Scientists have suspected for a long time that studying the genes of other species could be very useful for understanding our own. A new study conducted by European investigators establishes this as fact.

The joint team was based at the SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics and the EMBL-European Bioinformatics Institute, and published its results in the May 17 issue of the peer-reviewed scientific journal PLoS Computational Biology, which is edited by the Public Library of Science.

Researchers found that the emerging field of bioinformatics can indeed be used to formulate and test the basic principles on which life is built, e! Science News reports.

“Our work corroborates the assumption that studying the genes of other species – whether mice, yeast, or even bacteria – can elucidate aspects of human biology,” EMBL-EBI expert Christophe Dessimoz says.