Patent ID: 6994962

Claim:
A method for identifying genes that carry one or more alleles that confer an increased likelihood of mortal disease, comprising a) determining the number of two or more detectable point mutations in a gene or gene segment in a population of young individuals, and calculating the sum of the frequencies of all point mutations determined for each gene or segment; b) determining the number of two or more detectable point mutations in a gene or gene segment in a population of aged individuals and calculating the sum of the frequencies of the point mutations determined for each gene or segment; c) comparing the sum of the frequencies of point mutations that are found in a selected gene or portion thereof of the young population calculated in a) with the sum of the frequencies of point mutations that are found in the same gene or portion thereof of the aged population calculated in b), wherein a statistically significant decrease in the sum of the frequencies of point mutations associated with a particular gene in the aged population indicates that said selected gene carries one or more alleles that confer an increased likelihood of mortal disease.