US scientists have completed the first gene map of the chimpanzee, our closest relative, and placed the information into a free online database, the Los Angeles Times reported Thursday.

The sequencing was conducted by scientists at Washington University, Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, with funding from the US government.

The map, covering an estimated 88 percent to 90 percent of the chimpanzee genome's gene-coding regions, has been carefully aligned with the human genome on the Web site, ncbi.nih.gov/Genbank.

"We want to let the scientific community know that the sequences available and they can have access to it," said Richard K. Wilson, director of the genome sequencing center at Washington University.

An international team of scientists is comparing the genome with that of human and is scheduled to publish its findings within several months. They hope to find clues to what makes the two species so similar yet so strikingly different.

Sequencing the chimp genome was ranked a high priority by the US government's National Human Genome Research Institute. The information is expected to provide new approaches to fighting disease because chimps and humans succumb to different ailments: Chimps, for instance, don't develop AIDS or malaria.

(Xinhua News Agency December 13, 2003)