Itching (no pun intended) for a good read?

BACKGROUND INFO

Allergic diseases such as allergic rhinitis, asthma, atopic dermatitis and eczema represent a global health problem, affecting 10-25% of the world population. A genetic background, specifically a family history of atopic disease, has been the strongest risk factor for the development of allergic symptoms, irrespective of the varying prevalence and environmental risk factors in different societies. This research project will be carried out by a research team with multiple expertises in clinical allergy, molecular biology and immunology, population genetics, epidemiology, data-mining and integration. The main objectives include the ascertainment of a large clinically and epidemiologically well-characterized demographically matched case-control cohort (of 1000 allergic and 1000 non-allergic subjects), which will be employed to provide sufficient statistical power for identification of major atopic susceptibility genes in our population. This will be among the first genome-wide screening study in the field of allergy that will help identify key genes or haplotypes that are associated with allergic phenotypes.