Scottish scientists have helped to identify a gene that plays a
key role in how a commonly used diabetes drug works. The
discovery will create a new area for drug development in the
future. Researchers were able to identify an area of a
chromosome that altered how well people responded to treatment
by metformin. It is taken by millions of people with diabetes
around the world and has been in use for more than 50 years.
Metformin has been shown to protect against heart disease and
eye and kidney disease in people with type-2 diabetes and has
also been shown to have benefits against cancer - but scientists
did not know exactly how it worked. However, new research
carried out at the University of Dundee, Oxford University and
the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute as part of the Wellcome
Trust Case Control Consortium shed light on how the body works
with and makes use of metformin. Dr Ewan Pearson, Professor
Colin Palmer and colleagues based in the Biomedical Research
Institute at the University of Dundee used data