It's enough to make the search for an obesity gene seem utterly beside the point.

Would eliminating an obesity gene be therapy or eugenics?

Since the discovery of the first obesity gene in 1994, scientists have found about 50 genes involved in obesity.

(3/5) Scientists have identified another obesity gene .

When scientists give one strain, the C57BL/6J mice, an obesity gene, the animals grow hugely fat but never develop diabetes.

In fact, physical activity can reduce the effects of the 'fat mass and obesity-associated' (FTO) or obesity gene in adults.

In less than 10 years, we should know how the obesity gene acts, whether people are different from mice and whether there are multiple types of obesity.

To the Editor: Contrary to "The Obesity Gene" (editorial, Dec. 5), effective anti-obesity medications already exist.

The scientists at Hoffmann-La Roche, which does not have a license for the obesity gene, are hoping to find small molecules that could be taken as pills and would simulate leptin's effects.

Each week, it seems, brings the discovery of a gene that is associated with some disease or trait - among June's announcements, for instance, were an obesity gene and a social graces gene.

Despite the recent discovery of an obesity gene and the well-recognized fact that genes play a role in predisposing people to obesity, there has been no major change in the national gene pool over the short span of a decade.

Leibel and others involved with the discovery of the obesity gene eventually left Rockefeller University to establish a research base at Columbia University where Leibel became the head of the Division of Molecular Genetics.

Dr. Friedman and his colleagues also found that humans had a gene almost identical to the mouse obesity gene, hinting that the product of the gene, a hormone now called leptin, might be part of the body's natural weight-control system.

Amgen, of Thousand Oaks, Calif., has paid Rockefeller University, whose researchers earlier identified the obesity gene, $20 million for a patent license with an agreement to pay many times that amount if the hormone proves useful in treating obese people.

Finding the Target "I don't have beautiful language," said Jin-Long Chen, 35, by way of explaining that his halting English hasn't prevented him from heading Tularik's efforts to find a compound that might regulate the so-called obesity gene.