A GENE variant could explain why between 10 and 20 per cent of the 300
million people worldwide who are infected with hepatitis B can’t shake off the
virus, which can cause cirrhosis and liver cancer.
Lyna Zhang of Oxford University and her colleagues spent three years studying
families in Gambia and Italy. They found that a variation in the gene for an
immune receptor—which binds to a signalling molecule called interleukin
10—is closely associated with long-term hepatitis B infection in both the
families. Zhang hopes that the discovery will lead to new therapies, she told
the American…
