The Neanderthal genome is to be sequenced

The extinct Neanderthal are our closest relatives. Some believe that we may be a human – Neanderthal hybrid but mitochondrial DNA from ancient bones found only a very distant relationship. The results suggested and humans and Neanderthals had a common ancestor 500,000 years ago, long before modern humans evolved. The sequencing technique to be used in this new study is very different from that used in the human genome project. That technique sequenced relatively long pieces of DNA but the ancient DNA extracted from fossil bones is too short for such techniques. Scientists from Germany's Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology are teaming up with a company in Connecticut to map the genome. The company, 454 Life Sciences Corp. has developed an microwell technique using very small beads that can sequence a number of DNA segments in parallel with little equipment and is much better in sequencing short pieces of DNA than more classical techniques. Only 5% of the DNA is Neanderthal in these samples the remainder being bacterial contamination but as bacterial DNA sequences are so different they can easily be identified and removed from the database. It is hoped that this information will aid us in understanding what makes us human.