By contributing to the next generation DNA map, our experts will sit at science's top table, according to one professor

Hong Kong will be part of an international effort to create the next generation map of the human genome, a tool scientists hope will speed the discovery of genes linked to common diseases such as cancer, asthma and diabetes.

The haplotype map, or HapMap for short, will chart genetic variations within the human genome and lead to customised drug treatment for individuals. It builds on the Human Genome Project, which sequenced DNA's three billion pairs of chemical letters.

Led by University of Hong Kong (HKU) vice-chancellor Tsui Lap-chee, scientists from HKU, the Chinese University and the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology will comprise the Hong Kong team, which will unravel 2 per cent of the HapMap.

In 1989, Professor Tsui led researchers at Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children and the University of Michigan in isolating the defective gene responsible for cystic fibrosis and defining the main mutation.

'Mapping the haplotype is a shortcut to going through the 3 billion letters one by one,' said William Mak Wai-nam, manager of the University of Hong Kong Genome Research Centre, where the Hong Kong team will do most of its work.

To create the HapMap, DNA will be taken from blood samples collected by researchers in Nigeria, Japan, the mainland and the United States.

The researchers - from academic centres, non-profit biomedical research groups and private companies in Japan, Britain, Canada, the mainland and the US - will analyse the samples to create the HapMap.