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Tracy Hampton, PhD

JAMA. 2006;296:381-382.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

Following on the heels of the human genome project's completion, researchers at the Children's Hospital in Philadelphia are launching a large-scale effort to search for the genes behind common childhood illnesses.

With the goal of uncovering information that will be used to guide individualized therapy and devise better diagnostic tests and targeted treatments, the project will focus on some of the most prevalent diseases of childhood—including asthma, obesity, diabetes, and behavioral conditions such as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder—as well as pediatric cancers. These conditions often involve the interaction of multiple genetic and environmental factors.

INITIAL PLANS

At the hospital's new Center for Applied Genomics, investigators will analyze blood samples from more than 100 000 children over the next 3 years. "There has never been any such effort in children," said Hakon Hakonarson, MD, PhD, who left the genomic research company deCODE Genetics Inc, in Reykjavik, Iceland, to head up the project. At . . . [Full Text of this Article]