About SCGAP.
The Stem Cell Genome Anatomy Project (SCGAP) was initiated by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Seven groups were funded to form a research consortium under the auspices of NIH's Cooperative Agreement (), effective October 1, 2002. The aims of this consortium are to collectively develop necessary biological procedures and reagents for characterization of tissue specific progenitor cells and to characterize gene expression patterns in these cells using advanced technologies and bioinformatic techniques.
Currently, the goals of this website are to deliver the progress overview of the consortium's research efforts and to function as a gateway to the websites of the consortium participants. As such, the detailed data, protocols and descriptions are accessible from the respective website of the participating GAP projects.
One of the main objectives of SCGAP is to identify how undifferentiated stem cells become differentiated. Our researchers suspect that turning genes on and off is central to this process. Some of the most serious medical conditions, such as cancer and congenital birth defects, are the result of abnormalities in cell division and differentiation. A better understanding of the genetic and molecular controls of these processes may yield information about how such diseases arise and could suggest new strategies for therapy.