Figure 1: Representation of Single Nucleotide Polymorphism

Although SNPs are commonly occurring throughout the human genome and preferably do not have any side effects. Although scientists believe that SNPs may be proved a cutting edge technology to identify the genes responsible for several deadly diseases such as cancer, diabetes, vascular disease, and some forms of mental illness. Therefore, in April 1999, SNP consortium was developed including ten large pharmaceutical companies and the U.K. Wellcome Trust philanthropy to find and map 300,000 common SNPs to generate a SNP map of human genome as a part of the Human Genome Project.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Once the SNP profiles for specific types of diseases is established, it will be just a click away for physicians to identify susceptibility of a person to a disease by analyzing their DNA samples for specific SNP patterns.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------