The Broad Institute at MIT, Novartis, and Lund University have publicly released the results of a genome-wide map of genetic differences in humans and their relationship to type 2 diabetes and other metabolic disorders.
The work is the result of a pioneering public-private collaboration known as the Diabetes Genetics Initiative (DGI), which was formed in 2004 and is aimed at deciphering the genetic causes of type 2 diabetes. The collaboration brings together diverse expertise in diabetes and metabolic disease, human genetics, genomics, statistical analysis, and drug development.
The results of the study are freely available online at www.broad.mit.edu/diabetes.
First, let me start by saying I'm pretty much a die-hard capitalist, and I believe that profit is an excellent motivator for companies in performing research and development. But I don't think that anybody should be allowed to profit off of human suffering, so that's why I'm really happy when I see something like this. A for-profit company (Novartis) has put forth their resources to help find better ways to treat or even cure a disease that affects more than 170 million people world-wide (including several people that I know personally).
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
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