He found a link between HLA and the regions of junk.

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Mervyn Jacobson read about Simons' bumpy journey and was smitten with the idea of finding value in junk DNA. In 1989 they formed GeneType and applied for their first patent covering noncoding regions and HLA. In 2000 GeneType pulled off a reverse merger with a publicly traded Australian shell company that formerly mined for gold.

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Of course, it is not something that Hla Kyi, 55, is ever likely to get a chance to read.

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