Meet the people of genetic park

　　Ten remote villages in southem ltaly last week beca me a "genetic park", where scientists harvested the rac ially pure inhabitants' DNA to identify the causes of d isease. lsolated for centuries by mountains and forest, the villagers' genetic history stretches back to the Gr eeks and could hold the key to cures for Alzheimer's di sease, asthma(哮喘), cancer and hypertension(高血压症).

　　Villagers crowded into the town hall of Gioi Cilent o at the weekend to toast a project they hope will brin g visitors and jobs, reversing generations of poverty a nd emigration. It is one of science's most ambitious at tempts to trace the roots of inherited illnesses by spo tting genetic differences between a homogenous people. Similar projects are under way in Sardinia, lceland, an d the Pacific islands.

　　The villagers agreed to become a living laboratory after it was explained they possessed a unique gene poo l that could help create better drugs.

　　Two hours south of Naples, the area, known as Cilen to, had no roads or electricity until recent decades. W oods thick with olives, chestnuts, gorges and caves mad e it one of the remotest parts of the region of Campani a.

　　Scientists chose Cilento because its inhabitants, w ho survive by farming and making cheese, have been undi sturbed by large-scale immigration for millennia. Some of the villages, which each have between 600 and 2,000 inhabitants, still speak ancient Greek and Albanian. An other 70 Cilento villages are expected to join the proj ect nest year.