One notorious example came when just about every major drug company in the mid-1990s rushed to develop drugs to block a cancer-causing gene called ras.
If at least one of the newly selected tumours also had a mutated version of one of the genes in question, that gene was reckoned a good candidate as a tumour-causing gene.
Two developed the disease because IL2RG inserted itself into the cellular genome next to a known cancer-causing gene and activated it, but the cause of the third cancer case had not been found.
In the past three months scientists have unearthed solid evidence for six diabetes-causing gene variants, several variants involved in prostate cancer and an obesity gene that adds 7 pounds of fat if you have the bad version.
In a study of more than 1, 500 heart patients in two countries, the Icelandic gene-hunting firm found that defects in a crucial inflammation-causing gene nearly doubled the risk of heart attack and boosted the risk of stroke by 67%.
Dr. Kunkel's laboratory discovered the gene causing Duchenne muscular dystrophy in 1986.
Three new technologies allowed Lyon to find the gene that was causing the boys to die.
The gene mutation ends up causing lower-than-normal production of a protein called ApoCIII.
CNN: Gene mutation protects against milk shakes and other fatty fare
There, the RNAi silenced a gene that was involved in causing their liver cells to die, stopping their disease.
Outside the lab, rescue workers in the less-developed world might use portable gene machines to trace bacteria or viruses causing waterborne epidemics.
But longer exposure to the gene protein might lead to other cancer-causing abnormalities, which would not be reversible.
It turned out that the virus used to deliver the gene therapy was also inserting itself into cancer-causing areas of the genome, and not just where it was needed to cure the kids.
The modern hunt for disease-causing genes began in the early 1980s with the advent of new gene-splicing methods.
Engineered in lab mice, this gene produced a protein (named OPG) that vastly increased bone strength and thickness-without causing any harmful side effects.
Cyclopamine, it turns out, blocks the function of a gene called Sonic hedgehog that is essential for embryonic development but also plays a lead role in causing deadly cancers of the pancreas, skin, prostate and esophagus.
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