HEALTH, The Herald (Everett, WA) Tues, Sept 8, 1998 P. 3D QUOTED AS FOLLOWS: Gene research - family style Mormons are genecist's dream come true By Kristen Moulton, Associated Press Salt Lake City- What do you get when you pair Mormons' affinity for big families and genealogy with their enthusiasm for advancing science? A geneticist's dream come true: a foot in the door at Utah family reunions. Where else can a researcher collect 200 blood samples in one day to trace whether enlarged infant hearts or premature labor run in a family? asks Ken Ward, an obstretrician and geneticist at the University of Utah. Ward says he and colleagues have been invited to countless family reunions since he came to Salt Lake 12 yers ago, drawn by its reputation as a mecca for genetic research. "We set up a little shade tent and have some orange juice and a phlebotomist," Ward says. "In between softball and hotdogs, people will run by to share family history, sign consent forms, learn about the study and, frequently, roll up their shirt sleeves and give a blood sample." Geneticists for 50 years have recognized the value of Utah's extended families and their precise genealogical records. And in the 20 years that genetics has been revolutionizing medical science, Salt Lake has become one of the centers of that research. The University of Utah isn't alone in the forefront. The Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the Huntsman Cancer Institute, both based at the university and searching for genetic causes of disease, also attract top researchers. "It's a matter of having built up over the hears a critical mass of very good research people. That in itself can act as a magnet to come here," said Richard Koehn, vice president of research at the university and a geneticist himself. Ward, a native of Long Island, N.Y., says when he was researching genetics in Washington, D.C., patients often didn't know where their siblings were, let alone their medical histories. "Here, you're likely to have met dozens of your cousins and to have seen the premature baby who is still on an oxygen tank at the family reunion," Ward said. Most of Ward's gene investigations begin with patients who, when queried, know of parents, siblings or cousins with similar problems. Ward discovered two genes involved in pregnancy toxemia using the appraoch. "Families here tend to be a little closer knit and more involved, for better ro worse, in each other's lives, business, tragedies and triumphs," Ward said. "Because of this phemomena we are able to see patterns that may not be as obvious to other investigators." DNA from three generations of several Utah families is part of a repository in France where geneticists from around the world obtain samples to create genetic maps. Ward said the Utah contributions have been among the most useful because of the size of the families. What makes Utah unique is that it had what"s called a "founder population." Several thousand original Mormon pioneers, manyh of whom were polytamous, settled the Intermountain West beginning in the 1840s and had large families who mostly stayed put. Some 2 million people in Utah, Idaho, Nevada, northern Arizona and western Colorado and parts of wyoming and Montana can trace their roots to those pioneers. "If the original pioneer had a mutation responsible for cancer that spread through the family, that can be traced fairly easy," said Bill Hockett, spokesman for Myriad Genetics Inc., a company searching for genetic causes of disease with the hope of developing treatments. Only Iceland and some remote island populations can rival Utah for its value to genetics research, both because they have founder populations and extensive genealogical data, Hockett said. Myriad, founded by former University researcher Mark Skolnick, identified a gene involved in breats and ovarian cancer and watched its testing revenue rise 339 percent last year after the tests gained acceptance in the market. The company has discovered a heart disease gene and is closing in on asthma and other cancer genes. It's also looking into genetic causes of depression and dementia. "You couldn't do the same thing in many places in the world," Hockett said. (A pix accompanies this article with the caption, "Ken Ward shows off photo images of genetic material from fetal liver tissue at his Salt Lake City genetics lab.") END OF QUOTED ARTICLE from The Herald. * * * On Sept 8, 1664, the Dutch surrendered New Amsterdam to the British, who renamed it New York. * * * Carroll in Snohomish. >>>30<<< _____________________________________________________________________ You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail. Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com Or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866]