An $8 million, three-year grant announced Monday will give three Wisconsin colleges the resources to collaborate in an effort to solve the mysteries of the human genome.

The National Human Genome Research Institute announced it has awarded the University of Wisconsin, Marquette University and the Medical College of Wisconsin grants to establish a Wisconsin Center of Excellence in Genomics Science program in Wisconsin.

The program will allow researchers from the three institutes to work cooperatively to develop technologies that will help scientists understand how the human genome functions.

“The main goal of the center is to develop new technology, a new way of finding out what proteins are where in the genome,” said Lloyd Smith, professor of chemistry at UW and director of the Genome Center of Wisconsin. “Basically, the proteins control the expression of different types of genes. We’re working on developing better tools for identifying those proteins and studying them.”

The center will build off the work of the Human Genome Project, completed in 2003, which sequenced all 20,000 to 25,000 genes in human DNA.

According to Smith, the Human Genome Project produced a blueprint for researchers that maps out the human genome. In order for that information to be useful, scientists must determine how the proteins that bind to DNA activate or deactivate certain genes.

Michael Olivier, co-director of the Wisconsin Center for Excellence and professor of physiology at the Medical School of Wisconsin, said the research gathered at the center will be directly applicable to the medical field and will help scientists determine how certain genes are turned on or off.

Olivier said this information will be used to develop drugs that restore genes to their normal functioning, aiding patients who are genetically predisposed to certain diseases.

The Wisconsin Center for Excellence is the 10th Center of Excellence created in the country, but is the first in the Midwest. Other Centers of Excellence exist mostly on the East and West coasts, each researching different aspects of the human genome, according to Olivier.

The center will not be housed in a physical building but will instead be a “virtual center.” Researchers from the three institutes will share their findings with one another through regular meetings at each campus, phone conversations and video conferences, Olivier said.

Currently, the center is funded for three years by the National Human Genome Research Institute to develop technology that will unravel the functions of the proteins in the human genome. After that, the center may reapply for funding if it has created a prototype that successfully accomplishes that goal, Olivier said.