The Ice Bucket Challenge, is an activity involving dumping a bucket of ice and water on someone's head to promote awareness of the disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, known mostly in the US as Lou Gehrig's Disease) and encourage donations to research. Thanks to donations from the wildly popular Ice Bucket challenge, new clues involving genetics have been revealed through two new studies. In one study, the researchers looked at the genes of 1,000 people who had ALS and compared their genes to 7,300 people without the disorder. About 3% of the people with ALS carried a faulty version of a gene called NEK1, making this gene the most common genes to contribute to the disease. Another study found that a gene called C21orf2 was associated with a 65% increased risk of disease.This gene is located on chromosome 21 and may function in the internal skeleton and movement of cells. Overall, the Ice Bucket Challenge helped to find that one or two faulty genes could have an enormous impact on a person’s risk of developing ALS. Doctors Found this insight crucial to finding types of treatment strategies that might be effective.
http://www.livescience.com/55571-als-genetic-risk.html
By Laura Geggel
No comments:
Post a Comment