The HGP published its draft reading of all the bases and locations of about 30, 000 genes early in 2001, shortly after one of the leading UK scientists on the project, Dr John Sulston, was told he too would receive a knighthood.
In them, most of the genes for early development have been turned off and are difficult to reinvigorate.
The modern hunt for disease-causing genes began in the early 1980s with the advent of new gene-splicing methods.
The researchers discovered that in the early phases of biliary atresia, genes that trigger inflammation are activated, and genes that produce chemicals to fight infection are suppressed.
We think immediately of genes, but recent data show clearly that environmental exposures (especially early in life) play a large role in programming how one's genes are expressed.
Mutations in the genes for the proteins cause early-onset Alzheimer's.
Genes that had been expressed in early equids, are present but suppressed in the modern horse.
On Jan. 15, Pharmacia announced an alliance with Reykjavik, Iceland-based DeCode Genetics (nasdaq: DCGN - news - people ) to find genes that predispose people to progress from early forms of heart disease to later ones.
By studying the expression patterns of individual genes, cloners have found that certain genes which should be turned on in early development, such as those that control the implantation of the embryo into the uterus, are activated much later in cloned embryos.
The best evidence for the amyloid theory is the fact that rare early-onset cases are caused by mutations in certain genes involved in producing amyloid.
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What make better tests possible are gene databases, first developed in the early 1990s by Human Genome Sciences and Incyte Genomics, that categorize thousands of genes by the type of diseased tissue they inhabit.
Another early surprise: Many of the newly discovered disease-promoting variations don't lie inside the active genes.
We wrote about the vaccine two years ago as an early example of new personalized cancer treatments moving through trials that will target only the patients whose tumors have the bad genes.
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