The genome meetings at Cold Spring Harbor really became the meeting for the Human Genome community and the other communities as well. They became the places where people met and a lot of the decisions were made. I remember one of the meetings, which was perhaps a pivotal moment in the public human genome project, which is the meting where Celera had just been formed and announced their intention to sequence the human genome by the whole genome shotgun method. The meeting was really buzzing with that information. Michael Morgan who is the head of—he was head of the genome side of the Wellcome Trust—Came to the meeting and announced that Sanger had been given the money that they needed to sequence their third of the genome. I remember people standing up and giving him a standing ovation. There was such an atmosphere there. So moments like that I think they‘ve all really happened here at Cold Spring Harbor, I think that was 1998, but I can’t be sure.

Working at the Sanger Centre, Dunham heads the team, which sequenced human chromosome 22. He is interested in uses of human chromosome 22 as a model system for genomic analysis. Chromosome 22 represents about 1% of the whole genome but is a relatively gene rich chromosome. As such it is a tractable model system for a number of genome-wide studies.

Dunham’s initial work was in comprising physical maps in yeast artificial chromosomes (YACs) to produce an extensive YAC map, which served as the backbone for future production of the DNA sequence.

From 1996-1999 he focused on bringing the sequencing of human chromosome 22 to completion. This was achieved with the publication of the completed sequence and its analysis (Dunham et al. 1999). At the same time the group was responsible for establishing a benchmark level of gene annotation on the sequence. Currently chromosome 22 represents the best-annotated region of the human genome, and provides an excellent model system to develop functional genomic approaches. He was the leader of the consortium of four sequencing groups and numerous collaborators.

His team’s future research interests build on the knowledge of human chromosome 22 as a defined subset of the human genome to develop approaches to studying gene expression and networks at the mRNA and protein level. These include microarray expression analysis, cloning of tagged genes and expression of their proteins, development of phage antibody resources, and study of protein intracellular localization.

Dunham was formerly a Research Fellow and a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Guys Campus in London.

The BBC interviewed Dunham:

Computer modeling suggests there may be as many as 1,000 genes on chromosome 22, but even this is but a small fraction of the estimated 60,000 to 100,000 genes in our cells.

Human disorders "One down, the others to go," said Ian Dunham, a biochemist at the Sanger Centre in Cambridge, UK, and lead author on the scientific paper in the journal Nature that announces the genetics landmark. "It's a great relief to have it finished."

Mutations to genes along chromosome 22 contribute to heart defects, immune system disorders, cancers, and mental retardation. A gene linked to schizophrenia is also thought to reside somewhere on chromosome 22.