The National Institutes of Health announced today it would award some of its largest grants ever to three universities to continue sequencing human DNA to discover new medical therapies. The Eli & Edythe L. Broad Institute of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University will get $48-million over four years; Washington University in St. Louis will receive $41-million; and the Baylor College of Medicine $27.6-million.

MIT, Washington, and Baylor were among the major partners in the now-completed Human Genome Project, which decoded the sequence of all human chromosomes. With the latest grants, researchers will sequence abnormal genes that may help cause cancer and other common diseases.