Microarrys To Genes To Mechanism
From EurekAlert, a demonstration of the power of bioinformatics to speed medical research into age-related conditions. We already know that scientists can now move very rapidly to identify biochemical processes that cause disease if they just know which genes to use as a starting point. The hard part is finding those genes - but that is getting easier with the application of nanoscale engineering and computing power: "Microarrays are laboratory chips able to pick out which genes are active when different processes are occurring in the brain. When they analysed brains from people with Parkinson's, they found that out of all 25,000 human genes, regulation of 570 was highly abnormal in Parkinson's brains compared with non-diseased brains. This is the first study on Parkinson's disease where all human genes were studied."
Link: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-12/icl-sci121905.php