Genetic map could help war on disease

Last updated at 12:03 27 October 2005


Disease treatment could be revolutionised by a major advance in genetic science.

Scientists have charted genetic differences between 269 individuals originating from Africa, the Far East and western Europe in a "milestone" move that could change the face of medicine.

The "HapMap" may in future make the dream of personalised medicine into a reality.

Scientists expect it to help them pinpoint the genetic variations that affect an individual patient's response to drugs, toxic substances, and foods.

Doctors using the information, stored on computer, will be able to prescribe the right drug in the right dose for each patient.

Special diets and other lifestyle strategies could for the first time be carefully tailored to an individual's genetic make-up.

The HapMap may also be used to find the genetic factors that respond to good health and long life.

The map records tiny differences in the genetic code that are grouped into inherited families called "haplotypes".

Each haplotype is a combination of minute variations in DNA that have travelled together over evolutionary time.

More than one million of these single-letter differences in the genetic code, known as single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), or "snips", are represented in the HapMap.

Armed with this information, scientists will find it much easier to track down particular snips associated with certain diseases.

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