While scientists are using the human genome to associate certain genes with disease, Dr. Hongyan Xu wants to ensure they are accounting for natural variations in those genes.

A new study released today in the online edition of Physiological Genomics finds that individuals with a specific genetic variation consistently consume more sugary foods. The study offers the first evidence of the role that a variation in the GLUT2 gene – a gene that controls sugar entry into the cells – has on sugar intake, and may help explain individual preferences for foods high in sugar.

An international research consortium today announced the 1000 Genomes Project, an ambitious effort that will involve sequencing the genomes of at least a thousand people from around the world to create the most detailed and medically useful picture to date of human genetic variation.

In 2007, researchers were dazzled by the degree to which genomes differ from one human to another and began to understand the role of these variations in disease and personal traits. Science and its publisher, AAAS, the nonprofit science society, recognize “Human Genetic Variation” as the Breakthrough of the Year, and identify nine other of the year’s most significant scientific accomplishments in the 21 December issue.

Researchers report new insights into how genetic variation may create phenotypic differences between individuals. This study, which investigates the influence of mutations associated with obesity on the mechanism of splicing, is published online in Genome Research.

Scientists have provided new insight into how a gene is related to schizophrenia. In a study to be published in the August 17 issue of the Journal of Biological Chemistry, Amanda J. Law, Medical Research Council Fellow and Associate Professor at the University of Oxford, United Kingdom, and Visiting Scientist at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), along with colleagues at NIH describe for the first time a genetic variation that causes a gene to be overexpressed in the human brain.

The largest study to date of genetic variation among chimpanzees has found that the traditional, geography-based sorting of chimps into three populations-western, central and eastern-is underpinned by significant genetic differences, two to three times greater than the variation between the most different human populations.