The Sage Commons is a novel information platform being built by an international partnership of researchers and stakeholders to define the molecular basis of disease and guide the development of effective human therapeutics and diagnostics.
The Sage Commons will be used to integrate diverse molecular mega-data sets, to build predictive bionetworks and to offer advanced tools proven to provide unique new insights into human disease biology. Users will also be contributors that advance the knowledge base and tools through their cumulative participation.
The public access mission of the Sage Commons requires the development of a new strategic and legal framework to protect the rights of contributors while providing widespread access to integrative genomics resources.
Bio
Sharon Terry
Sharon F. Terry is President and CEO of the Genetic Alliance, a network transforming health by promoting openness as process and product, centered on the health of individuals, families and communities. She is the founding Executive Director of PXE International, a research advocacy organization for the genetic condition pseudoxanthoma elasticum (PXE). Following the diagnosis of their two children with pseudoxanthoma elasticum (PXE) in 1994, Terry, a former college chaplain, and her husband, Patrick, founded and built a dynamic organization that enables ethical research and policies and provides support and information to members and the public. Along with the other co-inventors of the gene associated with PXE (ABCC6), she holds the patent for the invention, and with the assignment of all rights to PXE International, is its steward. She co-directs a 33-lab research consortium and manages 52 offices worldwide for PXE International.
Ms. Terry is also a co-founder of the Genetic Alliance Biobank. It is a centralized biological and data repository catalyzing translational genomic research on genetic diseases. The BioBank works in partnership with academic and industrial collaborators to develop novel diagnostics and therapeutics to better understand and treat these diseases.
Study of heredity in general and of genes in particular. Modern genetics began in the 19th century with the work of Gregor Mendel, who formulated the basic concepts of heredity. In 1909 the word gene was coined by Wilhelm Johannsen, thus giving genetics its name. In the same year, Thomas Hunt Morgan provided evidence that genes occur on chromosomes and that adjacent genes on the same chromosome form linkage groups. This led to the important discovery that genes affect molecular action at the cell level, as evidenced by human hereditary diseases such as inborn errors of metabolism. Molecular genetics began in earnest in the 1940s when Oswald Avery showed that DNA is the chromosome component that carries genetic information. The molecular structure of DNA was deduced by James D. Watson, Francis Crick, and Maurice Wilkins. These and other developments led to the deciphering of the genetic code of the DNA molecule, which in turn made possible the recombination techniques of genetic engineering, discovered in the 1970s. An understanding of genetics is necessary for the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of hereditary diseases, the selective breeding of plants and animals, and the development of industrial processes that use microorganisms. See alsobehaviour genetics; biotechnology.
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