Kyowa Hakko Kogyo Co., Ltd. (President: Dr. Tadashi Hirata) has promoted the study to identify relationships between human genes and diseases in collaboration with a venture company in the U.K., Gemini Research Ltd., since December 1998.

  Gemini is engaged in the study to clarify relationships between genes and diseases. It has accumulated the data on genes obtained from the twins population worldwide and studied relationships between genes and particular diseases based on the clinical data.

  Meanwhile, Kyowa Hakko is advancing the study on the "klotho gene" which is considered to be age-related in collaboration with Prof. Nabeshima of Kyoto University and Prof. Nagai of The University of Tokyo. This collaborative study demonstrated this gene to be a cause of age-related diseases and has analyzed its functions.

  Kyowa Hakko and Gemini searched in collaboration for a candidate gene involved in age-related symptoms, particularly metabolic syndrome (hypertension, diabetes, obesity, etc.) and successfully identified relationships between "SNPs"¹⁾ in the klotho gene, one of human genes, and risk factors for metabolic diseases.

  The results of this collaborative study will have a big impact on the future gene studies and particularly contribute to the application of SNPs to pharmacogenomics.