Gene Block, a professor of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences at University of California, Los Angeles, and colleagues found that by middle age, the signal the master body clock in the brain sends out to other internal clocks to help resynchronize the different processes gets weaker.

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They also believe that techniques used to block this gene in mice could be used on humans, including those who have difficulty developing muscles.

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Rosanne and two other scientists decided to block the gene for apolipoprotein B, the main component in the form of cholesterol that contributes to heart attacks.

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"We are targeting younger people without kids or a house, but they could be a couple filing jointly, " says Block vice president Gene Goldenberg.

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If one of these companies had been allowed to patent a gene for the enzyme the statins block, the others would have likely been asked to look elsewhere for drugs.

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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.

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The theory behind targeted cancer drugs is simple: find the key gene mutations driving growth of tumors and then devise drugs that block those mutated proteins.

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