Three years ago Lubert Stryer, a professor of neurobiology at Stanford University, became intrigued with olfaction, thanks in part to two fellow scientists who uncovered a family of genes whose receptors for smell and taste are turned on at the base of the nose.

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It turned out to be one of a large family of different genes that determine the fly's body plan.

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Ultimately the drugs may even be able to prevent the disease from striking people at high risk because of a family history of diabetes or bad genes.

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In an eight-year heyday in the 1990s at Immunex, the two men helped discover some of the most important new drug targets in decades, unearthing a family of immune-system genes.

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He played football as a youngster on his home island of Mallorca, but basketball ability was in the family genes with both his parents players, while his elder sister Marta plied her trade in the American WNBA before also returning to Spain with her current club Salamanca.

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