The Environmental Genome Project

Abstract

Human illness is caused by many interrelated factors including aging, inherited genetic predispositions, and a variety of environmental exposures. There is increasing awareness of the role of genetics as a factor that can dramatically alter susceptibility to all disease, especially environmentally induced chronic disease, such as cancer, asthma, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and neurodegenerative disorders. In some cases, a genetic factor influences disease susceptibility in a small fraction of the population because it occurs at a low frequency or involves a relatively low-incidence disease; however, in other cases, a genetic factor increases susceptibility in a large number of individuals and involves a disease that occurs at high incidence, creating a large public health burden.