Group Kere

GENETIC RESEARCH OF COMPLEX DISEASES

Identifying susceptibility genes for complex diseases

Our group has for ten years been focusing on the genetic mapping and positional cloning of susceptibility genes for common, complex disorders.
There is very strong research strategic and methodological synergy between such genetics projects, even though the diseases under study represent different physiological disturbances and organ systems. Starting with collaboration with competent clinical scientists, we ascertain data and
samples from families with disease cases. We combine genotyping, DNA sequencing, bioinformatics, genomics, biochemistry and epidemiology to identify genes, proteins and biochemical pathways that are causally involved
in disease pathogenesis.

We work on two campuses in tight collaboration. The group at Karolinska Institutet, Huddinge, Sweden, was established in 2001 and belongs to the
Department of Biosciences and Nutrition, with a genotyping Core Facility at Clinical Research Centre. The group at University of Helsinki, Finland,
exists since 1993 and is part of the Center of Excellence for Disease Genetics at University of Helsinki and Biocentrum Helsinki.

During the past five years, we have made important progress in the following fields:
- 2001: we identified chromosome 7 as a susceptibility region in human asthma (Laitinen et al. Nature Genetics 28:87-91, 2001).
- 2003: we presented the first candidate gene for dyslexia (specific reading disability), DYX1C1 on chromosome 15 (Taipale et al. PNAS 100:11553-8,
2003).
- 2004: we discovered GPRA (GPR154) as a susceptibility for asthma on the chromosome 7 region mapped earlier (Laitinen et al. Science 304:300-304, 2004).
- 2005: we discovered that ROBO1, an axon guidance receptor gene, is a candidate gene for dyslexia on chromosome 3 (Hannula-Jouppi et al. PLoS Genetics 1:e50, 2005). This paper was cited among the Breakthroughs of the year by Science (310:1881-2, 2005).