New Delhi
6 April 2006
Blame it on the genes, if you happen to suffer from asthma that
occurs in association with eczema.
An Indian doctor working in the United Kingdom has discovered a gene that is a major
cause of a form of asthma and the skin disease. These gene defects are said to be afflict
10 per cent of the Indian population.
Dr Somnath Mukhopadhyay, who is one of two senior authors of the paper along with
Professor McLean, told this newspaper that his discovery offers the potential for gene
therapy to correct the defect.
"If through the assessment of gene defects one could identify a population that is more
susceptible to dust-related sensitisation, it may be possible to target these simple
interventions at this susceptible population.
"[They] would show a much greater benefit to these measures. Thus treatment would
become more personalised, directed at the individual patient, rather than generic as is
the case with most treatments now.
"This could bring greater benefits for patients," Dr Mukhopadhyay asserts. He is
associated with the Children's Respiratory Medicine at Ninewells Hospital and the
University of Dundee Medical School in Scotland.
His paper will appear in the April print edition of Nature Genetics, a leading science
journal for genetics. It was placed on the website of the journal on 21 March, Dr
Mukhopadhyay told this newspaper.
"[This] discovery could lead to the development of preventative interventions for eczema
and asthma [for children] at an early stage of life or, eventually, at the correction of the
gene defect," according to the National Health Service in Scotland.
He says there is a strong suggestion that the prevalence of eczema is increasing with
the rapid changes that are occurring in India related to diet and lifestyle. This, he adds,
also happened in the West as the West got prosperous.
He, therefore, feels "it is potentially important to bring this to the attention of pharma
industry in India because there are drugs that may help restore this barrier and could
constitute a novel treatment for the disease".
The research was made possible by 650 children with asthma from around Tayside in
Scotland, who took part in the BREATHE project, a collaborative project between National
Health Service Tayside and the University of Dundee.
The researchers determined the role of a gene for dry skin in causing eczema and
asthma and discovered a gene variation in the Scottish and other European populations
that acted as a strong predisposing factor in children.
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