BEIJING, Jan. 7 (Xinhua) -- Chinese scientists have claimed nearly 100 intellectual property rights on human functional genes, which have shown great potential in disease prevention and pharmaceutical development.

Sources with the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) said here Saturday that the great progress in human genome research is an important step of the "863" high-technology program, a national project initiated in March 1986 aiming to enhance the country's overall strength.

So far, Chinese scientists have established a platform for selecting human functional genes, cloned and identified 1,346 new genes, and carried out large scale examination of genetic functions. Among the 100 human functional genes with Chinese intellectual property rights, 20 or more are now in the initial stage of laboratory research.

In the meantime, the MOST said, progress has also been made in research on genes relevant to tumour and cardiovascular diseases and the causes of the diseases, and a group of genes related to heredity diseases have been cloned and identified, such as cataract and epilepsy among children. These research results have been published in the journals of "Science" and "Nature", laying a sound technological foundation for the diagnosis and treatment of heredity diseases. Besides, Chinese scientists have also scored remarkable achievements in genome research such as on rice, microorganism, silkworm, and schistosome.