Washington ? Howard University hopes to create the nation’s largest bank of DNA from black Americans — some 25,000 — to hunt genes involved in diseases that disproportionately strike blacks.

The DNA bank isn’t funded yet, but the university announced Tuesday that it would work with a well-known science database company, First Genetic Trust Inc., to develop the project.

The planned program is one of several under way to study genetic differences among certain populations, including black Americans.

Research shows the DNA sequence of any two people is 99.9 percent alike, regardless of race. But subtle variations in the genetic structure, called polymorphisms, can greatly affect an individual’s risk of disease.

Howard’s planned DNA bank would focus largely on blacks treated at university-affiliated medical centers for asthma, high blood pressure, diabetes, prostate cancer, breast cancer or obesity — ailments that strike minorities in disproportionate ways.

Breast cancer strikes fewer black women than whites, for instance, but is more deadly among the black patients.