Maine’s Jackson Laboratory, preparing to establish a major Connecticut research facility, and researchers at one of New England’s leading children’s hospitals say they have found the suspected genetic blueprint for a common and often deadly birth defect.
Jackson Lab, of Bar Harbor, Maine, along with Boston’s MassGeneral Hospital for Children and other medical institutes, say they used sophisticated data-filtering technology to uncover 27 new candidate genes for congenital diaphragmatic hernia (CDH).
One in every 3,000 live births have holes in their diaphragms that separates the abdominal cavity from the chest cavity, and may die due to poor growth of the lungs, authorities say.
The next step in the project, authorities say, is to screen patients for genetic mutations that cause CDH.
On Jan. 30, the Connecticut State Bond Commission approved $291 million in borrowing over the next decade for Jackson’s proposed research laboratory to be built at the University of Connecticut Health Center in Farmington.
