A new branch of the Huada  Genomics Information Base of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (BGI/CAS)  was founded on Saturday at the Zhejiang University in this capital  of East China's Zhejiang Province, according to today's China Daily.

    The project, a co-operative effort with the world's most famous  genomics study centre - WhiteHead in the Massachusetts Institute  of Technology in the United States - is part of the BGI/CAS in Beijing.

    The Zhejiang branch will offer a full set of classes and graduate  programmes at Zhejiang University, ranging from the basics to applications  of genomics.

    Fifty students are the first enthusiastic enrollees.

    "It is a great combination that the three (WhiteHead and the  two BGI/CAS entities) can work together," said Hangzhou Mayor Qiu  Baoxing, who visited WhiteHead in March. "Zhejiang University will  be able to provide this programme with some of the best talent in  the country. And we are also excited to see that high-level genomics  scientists will soon be brought out in our province.

    Genomics is the study of the genetic order of organisms.

    China joined the international Human Genome Project (HGP) in  1999, a key agency in the effort to decoding mankind's genomics  order.

    By last month, China had completed its part of mapping 1 per  cent of the human genome. Other nations are doing other work in  the effort, including the United States, United Kingdom, France,  Germany and Japan.

    "One of the wonderful things about the HGP is that it belongs  to the whole world and is done by scientists all over the world,"  WhiteHead Professor Eric Lander said. "It gives us an opportunity  to work, although far away from home, with scientists who are so  similar and as devoted as our colleagues back home." Lander praised  his Chinese counterparts and the 10th International Strategy Meeting  on Human Genome Sequencing in Hangzhou last week.