Developmental Gene Expression Map

DGEMap is the first ever design study, funded by the European Commission under the Sixth Framework Programme, aiming to generate the tools and a framework for a research infrastructure dedicated to gene expression mapping in early human development.

The future research infrastructure will be a pan-European organisation, likely to be a network, and will offer a coordinated service to the scientific community to promote knowledge and a better understanding of gene expression in human development.

The project started in April 2005 and will end in July 2008 with the detailed description for:

• the lab-based technologies,
• the informatics technologies,
• the ethical framework,
• the organisational and collaborative structures, necessary for a new research infrastructure designed by and dedicated to the scientific community.

DGEMap stems from and builds upon the experience of the Newcastle site of the pre-existing UK national collection of human embryonic and fetal tissue: the MRC-Wellcome Trust Human Developmental Biology Resource (HDBR).

HDBR is held at the Institute for Child Health in London and the Institute of Human Genetics in Newcastle upon Tyne. Samples collected at both sites are available to the international scientific community. Suitable material can either be sent to registered users or the in situ hybridisation service can carry out projects on users' behalf.

To date the resource has amassed over 1200 samples. HDBR provide high quality electronic images and interpretation of gene expression patterns.