Scientists announced Wednesday that they have produced a "road map" to genetic illness. As a result, the molecular locations of forms of asthma, cancer, diabetes, mental illness, heart disease, obesity and other ailments may be uncovered — potentially leading to treatments and prevention.

Researchers from six countries gathered in the Salt Lake City Marriott Downtown, 75 S. West Temple, to say they have completed a map of genetic variations that could be responsible for many inherited diseases.

The map — a comprehensive set of information about the variations — technically is called the "haplotype map of the human genome," according to the project's Web site. A haplotype is a section of genetic code, and the genome is the full genetic makeup. The work is dubbed the "International HapMap Project."

Hundreds of researchers worked on the project in the United States, China, Britain, Canada, Nigeria and Japan. They used samples from 269 people, representing populations from China, Nigeria, Japan and — using Utah residents with ancestry from the region — northern and western Europe. Seven other population groups are to be added to the effort soon, said speakers.

During a press conference, leaders of the project were welcomed by Michael O. Leavitt, secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Leavitt, a former Utah governor, was in town to address the American Society of Human Genetics, meeting in the Salt Palace.

The HapMap promises to show how genetic differences can indicate the likelihood a person will have a particular inherited disease. For example, someone more apt to develop colon cancer can be tracked and tumors removed before the disease reaches a deadly stage. The map could lead to new drugs that strike at the heart of an illness, scientists add.

Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Human Genome Research Institute, said that in the next two or three years he expects an outpouring of discoveries of the genetic basis of diseases.

Leavitt said it will be important to change the regulatory environment to allow the faster development of new drugs. "One of the barriers to a personalized therapy strategy is that our regulatory system is not established, or well suited, to deal with it," he said.

"We're going to have to reinvent our regulatory process as this technology rolls forward, so that as individualized therapies, particularly drugs, are offered, that we have a regulatory system capable of approving them."

The HapMap is also an indicator of human evolution, showing how certain factors developed in particular populations. One variation allows some groups of humans to drink milk beyond infancy, while others are lactose intolerant. The variation could tie in with the domestication of dairy animals.