Prize offered for genome research paper

Western Australian researchers have been offered a $20,000 prize for the publication of the first research paper, using new gene sequencing equipment, in a scientific journal.

Philanthropist Charles Morgan has provided the incentive, on top of almost $1 million to The University of Western Australia to purchase the new equipment.

Morgan said he decided to make the prize available to encourage researchers to use the equipment, at the Lotterywest State Biomedical Facility: Genomics at Royal Perth Hospital, to its full capability. The new equipment will allow researchers to sequence an entire genome - human, animal or plant - for relatively low costs and quicker than ever before available in Western Australia.

The prize will go to the Western Australian researcher or researchers whose use of the equipment leads to a paper published in Nature, Science, Nature Genetics, Lancet, The New England Journal of Medicine, or Cell.