Existing research with genetic data has begun to uncover many genes that are commonly found in patients with diseases related to allergies and the immune system. However, this type of research uncovers many more genes that can possibly cause these disorders – some uncovered genes cause these disorders, but others are simply likely to be found alongside! This phenomenon (known as linkage disequilibrium), that having one gene can make someone more likely to have another unrelated gene, makes it hard to identify which gene is actually causing the studied diseases. This research will focus on using additional data from donors, especially data concerning genes that have already been turned into proteins, to help narrow down from “associated genes” to “causal genes”.
