Competition in asthma

Researchers are chipping away at genes for multigenic diseases, but it will be some time before the clinical and diagnostic utility of single genes in such diseases is known.

Sequana Therapeutics Inc. last week announced the cloning of a gene thought to be responsible for causing asthma in some patients. SQNA (La Jolla, Calif.) would not disclose the identity of the gene pending issuance of patents on applications filed in January and publication of the results. The gene was cloned using PCR-amplified nucleotide repeats as genetic markers in tissue samples from populations in Australia, Canada, the U.S., Brazil, China, and the island of Tristan da Cunha, and is believed to be involved in 10 percent of all asthma cases. ...