About Us

Recent progress in human genome research, highlighted by the completion of the nucleotide sequence of the human genome, enables analysis of biological function at a molecular level. In particular, advances in the characterization of DNA variation have led to increasingly practical approaches to identifying genetic determinants of many multifactorial diseases, providing a new understanding of the pathogenesis of these conditions, diagnostics, and potentially individual-based therapy (personalized medicine). Despite some publications reporting the genes or polymorphisms responsible for various human multi-genetic diseases, the area still needs to be explored; only a tiny number of genes were confirmed for their significance by independent reproduction studies or in other ethnicities. One of the essential tools in this regard is the study of multiple ethnic populations to validate a gene-disease relationship through comparative analysis of linkage disequilibrium and disease-association patterns.
We focus on identifying genes related to the onset and progression of human multi-genetic diseases in a trans-ethnic way by an approach of large-scale genotyping of single nucleotide polymorphisms in selected gene candidates rather than undertaking genome-wide random processes. The principal components of the program have involved SNP identification of candidate genes of immune-related diseases, cancer, and cardiovascular diseases using DNA samples from different ethnic origins and subsequent case/control studies by SNP genotyping. The program also covers the construction of a comprehensive comparative SNP database of various multi-genetic diseases that integrates genetic and clinical information using new bioinformatics and statistical genetic tools.
We hope to establish a genome variation-based approach from these studies directly linked to clinical research and therapeutics in the disease areas under investigation.