Enter a standard gene name:

Or, specify a file containing standard gene name (one per line, 25 max):

User Guide

Join the TAMAL listserv! No spam, just infrequent announcements.

---

Overview
Background
How TAMAL works
Using TAMAL (coming soon)
Versions (coming soon)
Disclaimer

• Overview
• Background
• How TAMAL works
• Disclaimer

TAMAL stands for Technology And Money Are Limiting.

The open access Bioinformatics journal article on TAMAL is available here. Citation: Hemminger BM, Saelim B, Sullivan PF. TAMAL: An integrated approach to choosing SNPs for genetic studies of human complex traits. Bioinformatics 2006.

At some point in the future, it is projected that all genomic variation in a particular human might be measured quickly and cheaply. The cost of the Human Genome Project was about $1 per base. There are rumors of a commercial approach that improves on the HGP cost by 3.5 orders of magnitude, and the NIH is funding groups to develop approaches to better the HGP cost by 6.5 orders of magnitude (“$1000 Genome Project“).

Genotyping costs are lower than ever before. In the mid-1990s, $US 1,000,000 might have purchased 1,000,000 genotypes (e.g., 1,000 genotypes on 1,000 subjects). In 2006, $US 1,000,000 can buy in excess of 500,000,000 genotypes. Still, few investigators can afford to genotype all known or suspected genetic markers in a set of candidate genes of interest.

Therefore, currently, Technology And Money Are Limiting. A common problem faced by investigators is how to reduce the set of known SNPs in a candidate gene from hundreds or thousands to a more manageable and affordable set. TAMAL was written to make the process of SNP selection easier, comprehensive, and defensible.

For example, neuregulin-1 (NRG1) is an important candidate gene for schizophrenia and neurodevelopment but is quite large (1.2 million bases). Of the ~3,000 NRG1 SNPs in dbSNP, TAMAL prioritizes a set of <300 SNPs selected to capture common haplotypes and predicted functional variation.