Bioinformatics researcher Lincoln Stein is part of the International HapMap Consortium, a collaboration between public and private groups, whose aim is to chart the patterns of genetic variation that are common in the world’s human population. The first comprehensive collection of their results, called a "haplotype map" or HapMap, reported more than 1 million unique markers of human genetic variation gleaned from 270 individuals from four worldwide populations. This first version of the HapMap, published in 2005, is already accelerating the search for genes involved in common diseases including cancer, heart disease, diabetes, asthma, and macular degeneration. The HapMap may also be used to identify genetic factors that contribute to good health, such as those protecting against infectious diseases or other disorders. In addition, the HapMap is yielding intriguing clues about how our species evolved over time and the evolutionary forces that were important as the human population spread around the globe.
