A new international research consortium that aims to sequence the genomes of at least 1,000 people has just been set up. The project is expected to cost between $30 million and $50 million, and its aim is to uncover more detailed genetic factors involved in human health and disease. The consortium will sequence genomes from at least 1,000 volunteers worldwide to ensure representation of African, Asian and European populations. Support will come from several international institutions, including the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in the UK, the Beijing Genomics Institute, Shenzhen, in China, and the US National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), which is part of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. NHGRI will support and fund three of the large genome centers in the US which will primarily be responsible for producing sequence data for the project. Adam Felsenfeld, NHGRI's director, says that “the project goals are explicit: we want to produce a catalog of human variation down to variants that occur at 1% frequency or less over the genome, and 0.5–0.1% in genes.” He adds that the intention of the project “is to provide a resource that will greatly increase the ability of scientists to do genetic studies on common human disease. If that happens, any of the causal variants thus found would be a significant advance.” NS