Human memory gene identified.

One of the most important discoveries of the year: Researchers at the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen), in collaboration with American scientists, identified a human gene involved in memory. The beauty of this research is that it used the latest techniques in biology, gene chips, to scan the whole genome at 500,000 markers simultaneously to identify areas associated with cognitive differences between humans. They called this new gene Kibra.

By studying 1000 people, the study first identified the gene, then proved it is turned on ('expressed' in science speak) in the hippocampus, a brain area known for its memory functions, and then showed that brains of people carrying different variants of the Kibra gene show differences in memory retrieval tasks. Put together, this is is strong evidence that Kibra really is involved in memory functions of the brain.

So what happens now? Already, the researchers started working on drugs to minimize the effects of age-related memory loss and drugs for diseases that have memory loss components such as Alzheimer's disease. The other upshot is that these genome-wide techniques really do work, and in time, we'll start seeing more examples of such powerful experimental techniques being used to solve complex problems. The age of genomic medicine really has arrived.

Technorati Tags: memory, kibra, genome, TGen, Alzheimer's, brain