China gene experts search for answers on diabetes

By Tan Ee Lyn

SHENZHEN, China (Reuters) - Chinese scientists are trying to find out which errant genes are responsible for diabetes and certain forms of cancer that have long plagued Chinese populations, a geneticist said.

Rising affluence, richer diets and a sedentary lifestyle have led to an alarming rise in cases of diabetes in China in recent decades, while cancers of the esophagus, lungs, breast, stomach and colon have plagued Chinese people for a much longer time.

The partly state-funded Beijing Genomics Institute (BGI), which completed the mapping out of the first Chinese human genome in 2007, is trying to figure out which genes may be responsible for these chronic and even terminal illnesses.

"We are doing disease gene mapping, to find causal (gene) variants for certain diseases in Chinese populations," said Gao Yang, vice general manager of BGI's Shenzhen branch, which was mainly responsible for the sequencing of the first Chinese genome.

"We are most interested in diabetes and five types of cancer."

BGI is collaborating with Chinese hospitals on the cancer project and foreign institutions on diabetes.

"We will be sequencing DNA samples provided by hospitals," Gao told Reuters in a weekend interview.

Chinese doctors now rely on western data when making diagnoses and deciding on drug protocols, which Gao said was far from ideal.