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World's species to be 'barcoded'
Al
Jazeera.net
Wednesday September 19, 2007
Scientists are working on an ambitious project to create
a global database of up to half a million of the world's species
using DNA barcoding technology.
DNA barcoding, a technique for characterising a species using
only a short DNA sequence, has wide-ranging implications for health
and the environment.
A group of Canadian scientists is hoping to raise $150 million
to fund an initial five-year stage of what they describe as the
biodiversity equivalent of launching a rocket to the moon.
The technology could help remove illegal fish and timber supplies
from global markets, get rid of pests such as mosquitoes and even
reduce the numbers of collisions between birds and planes.
"We're now trying to launch in Canada the International
Barcode of Life Project, which has a five-year life span,"
Paul Hebert, head of the Canadian Centre for DNA Barcoding, who
is spearheading the project told AFP at a three-day seminar on
DNA in Taipei.
"We hope to put $150 million into this through a 25-nation
alliance."
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"The idea is collectively we would gather five million specimens
and 500,000 species within that five-year period," Hebert
added, saying the entire project could take 15 years.
The seminar in Taipei has brought together 350 scientists from
45 countries to debate the "barcoding of life" concept.
Scientists estimate that while nearly 1.8 million species have
already been identified, there may be another 10 million that
are not known.
But DNA barcoding technology has progressed so rapidly that scientists
predict that science fiction-style powers to recognise previously
unfamiliar creatures could become reality in a decade.
"Like in the film of Star Trek, anything scanned by such
devices could display its image, name and function," said
Allen Chen from Taiwan's Academia Sinica, Taiwan's top academic
body and one of three main organisers of the conference.
"This could be done 10 years from now after a global barcoding
data bank is set up," said Chen, an expert in corals.
Scientists are already working on hand-held barcoders that would
enable users to access a barcode data bank using a global positioning
system, said Taiwan's Shao Kwang-tsao, one of the conference chairs.
Hebert said the alliance would invest heavily in the development
of such technology.
This week's conference is being held by the Washington-based
Consortium for the Barcode of Life, which was set up in 2003 in
response to Hebert's initiative and now includes some 160 organisations.
At its first conference in London in 2005, the consortium's data
banks collected some 33,000 DNA references belonging to some 12,700
species.
Increasing attention
Today it counts more than 290,000 DNA samples from some 31,000
species, including about 20 per cent of the world's estimated
10,000 bird species and 10 per cent of the 35,000 estimated marine
and freshwater fish species.
The "barcoding of life" projects have drawn increasing
attention, particularly from the US, Canada and Europe, as scientists
explore the technique's applications, which range from food safety
and consumer protection to the identification of herbal plants.
One British scientist is working on a project to barcode 2,800
species of mosquito, or 80 per cent of those known to the world,
within two years.
The project is aimed at reducing the scourge of malaria, which
infects some 500 million people a year and is spread by some mosquitoes.
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