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Getting the latest healthcare news for you
Getting the latest healthcare news for you
A new AI-powered computational tool called DANDELION has identified 21 genes linked to asthma — 19 of which were previously unknown. Developed by researchers at UChicago and Columbia, the tool digs deeper into gene regulatory networks than traditional methods. Lab experiments and mouse models confirmed the findings, pointing to a promising new treatment pathway involving fatty acid metabolism.
Finding the genes that actually drive a disease — rather than just being loosely associated with it — is one of genetics' hardest problems. Traditional tools like genome-wide association studies (GWAS) tend to flag genes on the periphery of disease networks, often missing the real culprits buried deeper in complex gene regulatory chains. A new computational tool called DANDELION, developed by researchers at the University of Chicago and Columbia University, is designed to fix that.
Published in Cell, the study used DANDELION to analyze data from the UK Biobank (500,000+ volunteers) and identified 21 genes linked to asthma, 19 of which had never been flagged before. The tool works by tracing "trans-gene regulation" — the cascading effects where one genetic variant influences another gene, which influences another, and so on — to zero in on the genes sitting at the heart of disease.
Key Takeaways:
Why it matters: By identifying true disease-driving genes rather than peripheral associations, DANDELION could dramatically accelerate drug target discovery — not just for asthma, but for a wide range of complex diseases where genetics research has stalled.
