The latest edition of the journal Nature reports on scientists' progress in mapping the Han Chinese genome.

The scientific journal introduced the map of a Han Chinese individual, drawn up by about 120 scientists in the southern boomtown of Shenzhen, as part of its cover story on Thursday, said Wang Jian, head of the genome mapping project, on Friday.

Felix Cheung, a representative of the Nature Publishing Group, extended congratulations to the Chinese scientists and praised their achievements at a press conference in Shenzhen on Friday.

"The work is important because it demonstrates the utility of next-generation genome sequencing technology and illustrates the potential of personal genomics in disease diagnosis," said Cheung.

"It's a representative of an ethnic group that accounts for nearly 30 percent of the human population," he said.

The sequencing is the first for a Han Chinese and the third for humans overall.

The project is the Asian section of a comparative genomics project by Chinese and British scientists, which aims to create genome databases for various races from different continents.

"By comparing with the other individual genomes already available, the discovery of the Asian genome will also shed light on the genetic variation in individuals of different ethnic origins," said Cheung.

The publishing of "The Diploid genome sequence of an Asian Individual" in Nature was greatly encouraging for the Chinese scientists, who are seeking further funding for their study, said Wang.

According to Wang, the Yanhuang Project, named after two legendary ancient emperors who are considered to be the ancestors of the Han ethnic group, will map the genomes of 100 individual Chinese.

"Our first donor is a researcher. We hope that the rest of the group will be volunteers who want to have their genomes sequenced for purely scientific purposes," he said.

Wang said it was necessary to create the database to solve problems involving Chinese-specific genetic diseases.

"It will also give us a solid foundation for individual health care in terms of accurate and effective diagnosis, prediction and therapy," he said.

(Xinhua News Agency November 8, 2008)