Quebecers, many of them descended from a handful of families who arrived from France, could hold the key to medical breakthroughs as their tiny gene pool provides the perfect testing ground for researchers and pharmaceutical firms.
John Hooper, chief executive of Genizon BioSciences Inc., a privately owned Montreal biotech company, told Reuters in an interview on Friday that the population of the French-speaking Canadian province has remained relatively isolated over the last 250 years. The small gene pool is a dream for scientists seeking cures for genetic diseases, he added.
“Almost all French Canadians today are derived from that group that expanded essentially in isolation until the 1950s,” Hooper said.
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