The white-cheeked gibbon (Nomascus leucogenys) will be the next species of primate to get its genome sequenced by the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) in Bethesda, Maryland, accoridng to ScienceNOW Daily News. 
After decoding the human and chimpanzee sequence, the NHGRI has seen how the benefits of related genomes have helped medicine and other sciences; so the insititution has planned to sequence rhesus macaque, marmoset, orangutan, and gorilla genomes.
The work should help researchers understand primate and human evolution and the role of genes in disease, because related genomes provide a relative point of understanding what is a genetic difference between human and non-human primate and what is a genetic disease. The NHGRI plans to have the genome sequenced by three years…. but I think it will be done sooner.
5 Comments
July 24, 2006 at 4:07 pm
[...] Gibbons seem to be all the rage, lately. A new biophysics paper on the gait of Gibbon bipedalism has been the most recent news that I have caught in my search of current events in primatology. The paper, “The dynamics of hylobatid bipedalism: evidence for an energy-saving mechanism?” was published four days ago in the Journal of Experimental Biology. It overviews how Gibbons moved on the ground based on the concern that there is some common energy-efficiency pattern in all primates that are fundamentally adapted to arboreal environments, but that can also stand up and walk. It turns out, they do just fine on two legs, but their gait is much different from ours. [...]
February 23, 2007 at 10:11 pm
[...] sense of the scrambled Gibbon genome Jump to Comments Remember when I told you that the genome of the gibbon was to be sequenced, all the way back in July of 2006? At that time, I assumed it will be finished sooner than the 3 [...]
December 3, 2007 at 7:40 pm
Out of the world’s 4 types of apes and the 3 types of greater apes (note: no such thing as a ‘Bonobo’ not as long as those highly variable Gibbons are NOT given new names like ‘Bindi Bindi’ or something and split into different speices of Apes) the Chimp seems to be stigmatised with infecting humans with dangerous viruses.
Why is’nt the self-styled conservationist industry like primatolagy.net, NOT confronting the official propaganda. Why are you letting your Chimp mates be demonised?
If its not raping a green coloured monkey its eating an ape. Is’nt claiming chimps etc cause things like AIDS both, 1. adding to the threat to the survival of apes and 2. bad medecine or are ape-huggers actually partly behind the scare stories in an irresponsible bid to 3. pervert mother nature and wrench out ape meat from the food chain.
The headlines should read…’Deadly Nature -Tinkering Frankenstein Conservationists Disrupting Research Into AIDS Cure!’
Anyway what about the planet’s foremost tree swinger, the Gibbon of India – is there more or less risk amongst the lesser apes like the Gibbo passing on viruses to humans?
P.S. Talking of AIDS whatever did happen to Central Africa’s infamous so-called ‘Green Monkey’ Did they all get eating by super-evolved Chimps with a developed taste for delicious green meat?
Why are the highest rates of AIDS NOT found in the Green Monkey’s host nations like ‘darkest’ Congo but found in the southern part of the continent, ie pinkest Africa – (you know, those apartheid and neo-apartheid nations which contain(ed) historically large white populations)
I know its taboo to mention but if poverty also is not a factor then why is AIDS so much more prevelent in Southern Africa rather than the virus’es source in central Africa?
Why the failure, why no research into this anomaly from western academics. It’s not like they would be forced to praise central African health care system for the significant higher rates of HIV infections in southern Africa compared to central Africa.
Yours
Anti-Blairofascist League
February 27, 2009 at 3:38 am
[...] another post, the decision of the National Human Genome Research Institute to sequence the genome of the Gibbon [...]
January 31, 2010 at 3:59 am
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