HEALTH UPDATE: major gene link seen to childhood asthma

A newly-discovered gene boosts the risk of childhood asthma by as much as 70 percent, according to an investigation into asthma-prone infants in five countries. The culprit gene, called ORMDL3, is located on Chromosome 17, the paper, published online on July 4 by the British science journal Nature, says.
Twenty-four experts from Britain, France, Germany, the United States and Austria joined the DNA trawl, comparing samples from 994 children with asthma against those from 1,243 local children who did not have the disease.
Asthmatic youngsters were between 60 and 70 percent likelier to have telltale mutations, called single-nucleotide polymorphisms, in their ORMDL3 gene than healthy counterparts.