"Junk DNA" is useful for the detection of disease

It turned out that the "junk DNA", which scientists have long thought that there is a function, plays an important role in the development of complex diseases such as diabetes, Crohn's disease, multiple sclerosis, lupus and cancer.

This discovery, the largest in molecular biology over the last ten years, it could cause a number of new therapies and drugs. The study, which lasted nine years, involved 440 scientists from 32 laboratories in the UK, U.S., Spain, Singapore and Japan.

The obtained very important clues to follow that science has discovered the key mechanisms that play a role in health and disease. This should be explored in order to be made ​​whole new medications or changed is existing.

The term "junk DNA" must now be discarded. From this research it is clear that this is part of the gene which is biologically more active than expected.

This term, the "non-coding DNA", scientists have figured out 40 years ago to describe the part of genetics that do not contain genes.

When in 1989. under the leadership of Nobel laureate James Watson began three billion-dollar project "Human gene", most scientists believed that the "junk DNA" has an important biological role.

Read of the human genetic code in 2000. years, and three years later published a complete map of the human genome.

Having completed the human genome project secessionist became clear that genes carry information for protein synthesis has about 20,000, which makes it one of only two percent of human DNA.

To be studied function of the remaining 98 percent of human DNA, which is believed to play an important role in the regulation of gene activity, which began in 2003. The program "ENCODE" in order to try to find the "non-coding part of genes", ie. "junk DNA."