Alliance to Study Links Between Genes and Disease

A strategic alliance pairs researchers at the Emory University School of Medicine (Atlanta, GA, USA) with a genomics company in Iceland that has accumulated comprehensive population data to identify genetic factors underlying common diseases. That company is deCode Genetics (Reykjavik).

Decode has created an extensive database that anonymously cross-references genealogic information about the Icelandic population with genetic and disease data from volunteer patients and their relatives in more than 50 disease categories. Emory doctors and scientists will use these genetic clues, along with deCode's genotyping capabilities to advance clinical and laboratory research within the Emory patient population. In addition, Emory will collaborate with deCode on research projects covering many diseases and will contribute clinical and research expertise in a number of medical specialties.

Using large-scale genotyping, deCode scientists are generating genetic fingerprints of each chromosome of the volunteer participants in order to identify small segments of chromosomes shared by patients with a particular disease. Genotypes are compared between closely and distantly related disease sufferers. This enables researchers to identify the particular genes or sections of genes linked to that disease. Armed with these clues, Emory scientists will conduct their own studies among Emory's diverse group of patients to discover the full range of mutations or versions of these genes that might predispose to disease.

"Working with deCode, we can use the genetic clues from the relatively homogeneous Icelandic population to determine whether implicated genes confer disease risk in more complex populations,” said Allan Levey, M.D., Ph.D., Emory neurologist and director of the Emory Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases.





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