Friday, May 26, 2000

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Yahoo! News Partners HealthCare and DeCODE Genetics Join Forces Against Disease
"Through a better understanding of the genetic components of disease, the alliance aims to pioneer new diagnostic and therapeutic approaches to common illnesses and to develop leading-edge bio- informatics that can improve the quality of healthcare.

The three-year agreement includes research and business collaborations in three distinct areas. First, the alliance will enable Partners and deCODE scientists to form joint research teams to identify and compare disease- causing genes or loci responsible for diseases in both the Icelandic and Massachusetts populations. Second, the two entities will be able to collaborate on basic research related to these new genes and on the discovery of novel approaches to preventing and treating common diseases. Third, deCODE will provide Partners with healthcare informatics systems resulting from deCODE's development of the Icelandic Health Sector Database (IHD). These technologies will strengthen Partners' existing information system infrastructure, enabling a more comprehensive population-based approach for its genetics research and facilitating collaborations between the two parties. deCODE has the right to develop and market products and services resulting from the collaborative research programs."

British Medical Journal Genetic epidemiology
"Research in disease aetiology has shifted towards investigating genetic causes, powered by the human genome project. 1 2 Successful identification of genes for monogenic disease has led to interest in investigating the genetic component of diseases that are often termed complexthat is, they are known to aggregate in families but do not segregate in a mendelian fashion. Genetic epidemiology has permitted identification of genes affecting people's susceptibility to disease, although progress has been much slower than many people expected. While the role of genetic factors in diseases such as hypertension, asthma, and depression is being intensively studied, family studies and the large geographical and temporal variation in the occurrence of many diseases indicate a major role of the environment. Thus, it is necessary to consider findings about susceptibility genes in the context of a population and evaluate the role of genetic factors in relation to other aetiological factors. This article discusses some approaches used to resolve the genetic architecture of disease and to study the relation of genes to environmental factors in the population. "

redux [02.13.00]
The Daily Davos Beyond the Genome
"By the spring of this year, the first draft of the human genome -- the sequence of all the genetic instructions needed to make up a human being -- will be published on the Web. But that is only the end of the beginning. Scientists still have very little idea of what most of the 100,000 or so human genes actually do, and finding out will take them into a very different area of research.

The raw material of the genome program has been anonymous samples of DNA, manipulated by complex laboratory machines that turn out information like a production line turns out widgets. But the new era of post-genome research involves analysing real people and their confidential medical records. The records are needed to match the genes that people carry with the diseases they may develop. Only then will gigabytes of genetic data into new treatments for cancer or heart disease. And that is why socialised healthcare is a vital part of post-genome research.

Countries such as the U.S., which provide healthcare through private enterprise, are useless for this sort of genetic inquiry. Only those countries which have organized the delivery of healthcare to their population in a way that is independent of the marketplace have built up the universal medical records necessary to make sense of the patterns of disease."