Friday, July 20th, 2007

Scientists Scour Genome For Clues About Disease

The reason some of us get diseases such as cancer or diabetes while others don't may lie in our DNA. This hour, we'll look at the genetics of common diseases, including a new study that links variations in DNA to differences in how well different people fight HIV infection. New technology in genetics has allowed researchers to sift through the human genome looking for possible genetic connections to all types of diseases. But how can knowledge about those associations be put into use? We'll talk with several key researchers in the field of genome-wide association studies.

Guests

David Valle
Director of McKusick-Nathans Institute of Genetic Medicine
Professor of Pediatrics, Ophthalmology and, Molecular Biology & Genetics
Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
Baltimore, Maryland

Lawrence Brody
Senior Investigator
Human Genome Research Institute
Bethesda, Maryland

Aravinda Chakravarti
Director of the Center for Complex Disease Genomics
Professor of Medicine, Pediatrics, Molecular Biology and Genetics
Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
Baltimore, Maryland

David Goldstein
Professor of Molecular Genetics & Microbiology
Institute for Genome Sciences And Policy
Duke University
Durham, NC