Center for the Study of Human Polymorphisms


 * "CEPH" should not be confused with the distributed filesystem Ceph.

Centre d'etude du polymorphisme humaine (or the Center for the Study of Human Polymorphisms), now called the Foundation Jean Dausset-CEPH, is an international genetic research center located in Paris, France. It produced a map that includes genetic markers of human chromosomes using a resource of immortalised cell cultures.

Background
In his 2005 addendum to his biography for the 1980 Nobel Prize, Jean Dausset noted that, thanks to his Nobel Prize and a grant from the French Television, he had been able in 1984 to create the Human Polymorphism Study Center (CEPH), which soon after became Foundation Jean Dausset-CEPH. Dausset founded CEPH with the collaboration of Professors Howard Cann and Daniel Cohen.

Human Genome
Numerous collaborators working on the same large families as Dausset had collected for his Nobel Prize-winning studies on the HLA system, led to the addition of numerous gene markers and made it feasible to publish the first genetic map and, later on, the first physical map of the human genome.

New resources
An exhaustive study of human populations around the world has also produced important publications from CEPH. Besides this, DNA samples from sibships of people over 95 years old and a bank of centenarians now provide a valuable research resource at the Foundation Jean Dausset-CEPH.