Millennium Pharmaceuticals (nasdaq: MLNM - news - people), another genetic database firm, has made a series of acquisitions and strategic alliances.

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Houston's Compaq is developing the supercomputing technology in collaboration with genetic database company Celera Genomics (nyse: CRA - news - people) and the Department of Energy's Sandia National Labs.

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For example, a genetic database created by Spectra Biomedical, a division of Glaxo Wellcome, found an unexpected correlation between migraine attacks, serious depression and variations in the dopamine D2 receptor (a molecule that sticks out of certain nerve cells).

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As every biomedical scientist knows, GenBank is a free, public database of genetic sequence data that contains millions of sequences, from humans, bacteria, viruses, you name it.

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Finding out what the future holds in store for you is great for customers. (I guess.) But 23andMe getting to compile a vast database of genetic material from its customers is a wee bit disturbing.

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So far most of the reopened cases have relied on obtaining genetic profiles which were then fed into the national DNA database to check for matches.

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An important current approach, known as genetic profiling, involves comparing crime scene DNA with that from a suspect or with a profile stored in a database.

BBC: Forensic test can predict hair and eye colour from DNA

Genetic factors are also being checked and tissue samples are being taken from patients with tumours to build up a tissue database for further research.

BBC: Surgery