Controversial research by the Israeli society: IDgene The COMT gene is one of the significant factors in the development of the disease
Tamara Traubman
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Scientists from the Israeli company IDgene reported today (Monday) that they discovered a gene related to schizophrenia. According to the researchers, the study shows that a gene called COMT "is one of the most significant factors" in the development of the disease. However, according to them the gene cannot explain all cases of schizophrenia, but about 20% of them.
The connection between the gene and schizophrenia was discovered through a comparison between the genes of sick and healthy people - all Jews of Ashkenazi origin. According to the head of the research team, Dr. Ariel Darbasi, and many other scientists, the Ashkenazim are a genetically homogeneous population group, and therefore it is easier to locate disease genes through them.
Schizophrenia affects about 1% of the total population. Patients with the disease lose social interest in those around them, develop emotional darkness and sometimes imagine sights or sounds that do not exist in reality.
Many scientists believe that genes have a great influence on the development of the disease, alongside the influence of environmental and hereditary factors, but there is difficulty in locating the genes associated with the disease, because it is clear that it is not influenced by a single gene.
However, the study is controversial and highly criticized. In the last decade, there have been many cases in which researchers attributed an influence to genes on psychiatric diseases, and in the end it turned out that their influence is little or non-existent.
Along with Debarsi, who serves as the president of IDgene and a professor of genetics at the Hebrew University, Prof. Avi Weizman, who serves as a psychiatrist at the Gaha Psychiatric Hospital, and other colleagues participated in the study. A report describing the results of the study was published today in the American Journal of Human Genetics
IDgene has signed agreements with about a hundred doctors in Israeli hospitals, and conducts extensive genetic research in patients of Ashkenazi origin with the aim of detecting diseases such as hypertension, cancer and diabetes. The company intends to patent the findings or sell the information to pharmaceutical companies. IDgene received approval from the Ministry of Health, but some argue that there was not a sufficiently in-depth discussion of its implications.
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