PART-2
The Type Of Genomics Research That GenoMed Is Doing Is Analagous To Fishing -
The Key To Success Is In Knowing Where To Look….
Think of GMED’s on-going research into identification of disease genes
as being analagous to fishing - the bigger the net that you are able to
cast, the greater the chances are that you will catch some fish.
The "ocean" that GenoMed is working in is the Human Genome, which
contains some 40,000 genes and more than three billion "letters". Within
this ocean of genetic data, a disease-causing variation can be something
as small as a single "letter" - also known as a single nucleotide
polymorphism or SNP (pronounced "snip").
The reason why one person gets cancer but their neighbor gets heart
disease is generally believed to be contained in the differences between
the letters of their DNA. The question is "which few SNP’s account for
their different diseases? " And how do you find them in a sea of three
billion total letters?
Again, finding disease genes is like fishing in the ocean: the larger
the net, the more likely you are to catch a fish.
However, since no one company has the resources or manpower to search
the entire Human Genome, GMED has decided to do the next best thing:
focusing on where the fish (disease genes) are most likely to be…
Common diseases are exquisitely complicated - the result of perhaps
more than 100 SNPs in dozens of different genes, many of which interact
with one
another. So many SNPs are involved that each one hardly stands out.
GenoMed believes that the only way to find these SNPs is to trawl a net
that catches disease fish specifically. This means going after the
disease-causing SNPs themselves.
Why? To the best of our knowledge, no other genomics research company
is taking this approach…
Well, quite simply, GenoMed believes that enough disease-associated
SNPs have been found in regulatory regions to justify focusing on this
part of each gene.
Whereas other companies use "marker" SNPs to try to get close to the
disease-causing region of a gene, GenoMed is going to use SNPs, which it
believes have a high likelihood of being the cause of a specific
disease (i.e. of being functional in and of themselves, and not just being
markers).
GenoMed’s Research Strategy
Is Actually Quite Straight-Forward
GenoMed is using a straight-forward approach (and off-the-shelf
technology) to identify which gene (or groups of genes) cause diseases.
First, SNPs that appear at a much higher frequency among patients with
a particular disease ("cases") than among people of the same ethnic
group without the disease ("controls") are identified as
"disease-associated SNPs".
SNPs that occur significantly less often among patients (cases) than
controls will be labeled "protective SNPs" (i.e., these make a particular
disease much harder to get.
How significant the association is between a SNP and the disease can be
measured by standard statistic techniques, and GenoMed has assembled a
team of some of the top genetic statisticians and molecular
epidemiologists in the world to perform this complex analysis.
GMED Is Focusing Its Research
On A Number Of Serious Diseases
GenoMed is currently collecting and analyzing genetic data for the
following (www.genomedics.com/index…diseases) diseases: Type 2 diabetes
(also called "adult-onset diabetes"); high blood pressure; end-stage
kidney disease (due to type 2 diabetes or high blood pressure); and, cancers
(breast, lung, prostate & colon).
DNA Samples Are Being Collected From Various Ethnic, Gender & Racial
Groups
Research has conclusively established that disease genes can vary
depending on a person’s gender and ethnic/racial group.
To ensure that its diagnostic research is complete and comprehensive,
GMED is already or plans soon to be collecting DNA data from the
following patient populations: Caucasians (USA & Russia); African-Americans
(United States); Hispanics (United States); and, Asians (Korea). |
