Female Genome Map May Help Fight Disease

Lee Coe is not a scientist. She's a 67-year old retired social worker. But perhaps no one knows the importance of genetic research better than she does, CBS News medical correspondent Dr. Jon LaPook reports.

Coe, who had a heart transplant last year, has a hereditary heart condition called cardiomyopathy, a disease that killed her mother and three of her brothers.

"I feel extremely grateful because nobody in my family has lived this long," Coe says.

Now that the gene has been identified, it's changing the way her grandchildren, Ashlan and Conner, are growing up. They both carry the gene, too — but because they know it, their mother has been able to take precautions.

"I need to be able to guide them to music rather that football. More information is always a good thing," says Wendy Coe.

Personalized medicine through genetic testing is the way of the future.

"The goal here is not only about predicting disease, it's about how can we now treat them," says Dr. Paul Ridker, Eugene Braunwald Professor of Medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.

This kind of personalized genetic testing goes well beyond a relatively rare form of heart disease. Scientists hope to reveal the genetic blueprints for the most common diseases, like breast cancer, osteoporosis and diabetes.

It's all being studied by scientists at Brigham and Women's. They've partnered with the federal government and Amgen to analyze the DNA of 28,000 healthy women, making it the largest genetic study of women's health to date.

"These 28,000 women are really pioneers," Ridker says.

Using blood samples taken from the women more than a decade ago, scientists are starting to run full genetic scans.

"It's asking the question: Looking across your entire genetic basis, what's different between those women who actually develop breast cancer or heat attack and stroke and those women who don't," Ridker explains.

While focused genetic research has helped people like the Coe family, the real promise lies with new, broader research, such as the Brigham and Women's study.

"They are agreeing to participate in something that hopefully will help them, but will more likely help their daughters," Ridker says.