African, Asian join library of genomics

Laboratories have for the first time sequenced the full genetic code of an African and an Asian in what amounts to a major step towards the goal of a tailor-made profile of one's DNA.

Until now, the genomes of only two individuals - James Watson, who co-determined DNA's double-helix structure, and maverick biotech entrepreneur Craig Venter - have been unravelled.

Both men are of European descent, which leaves gaps in knowledge about how people of different ethnic backgrounds could be susceptible, or alternatively immune, to inherited diseases or respond to medicine.

Two studies, released on Wednesday by the British-based journal Nature, aim to fill in some of those blanks, with the genomes of a Han Chinese male and a man from the Yoruba ethnic group in West Africa.

The two teams describe the methods they used to expose the three billion base pairs of code in the anonymous individuals' DNA.

Later work, analysing the genomes of the four men, will compare and contrast changes in the code that could be linked to disease.

The two new genomes were compiled using...