UCL RESEARCH DEPARTMENT OF GENETICS, EVOLUTION AND ENVIRONMENT

A coherent pathway which starts from no more than rocks, water and carbon dioxide and leads to the emergence of the strange bio-energetic properties of living cells, has been been traced for the first time in a major hypothesis paper in Cell this week.

Published in The American Journal of Human Genetics, Nik Maniatis and colleagues (PhD student Heather Elding,  post doc Winston Lau and Prof Dallas Swallow) have now used their gene mapping strategy for a genome wide association study.  Using this method  which more precisely maps gene locations and uses fewer samples than current meta-analyses, they have been able to identify a large number of additional genes for Crohn’s Disease, making a total of more than 200.  Notably some of these  appear to have a much stronger effect in a clinical subgroup of patients--another step towards personalised medicine. UCL's Press Release here.