The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) said in Hong Kong Tuesday that its researchers have made a major breakthrough in revealing the cause of schizophrenia.

According to the university, the researchers have discovered a key genetic link that will pave the way for the finding of an effective treatment of the disease.

The research group led by Dr. Hannah Hong Xue, associate professor of biochemistry, has identified the fifth gene associated with schizophrenia in the global race to find the root and treatment of the disease.

In the past decade, scientists all over the world have been searching for genes linked to schizophrenia and four have been found. The HKUST said its group has searched out the fifth one in the past year.

This is also the first time in the scientific world that a gene strongly associated with a complex disease has been first pinpointed in ethnic Chinese, prior to being established in other ethnic groupings, it said.

HKUST's findings were published in the latest issue of the prestigious journal Molecular Psychiatry of the Nature Publishing Group.

Schizophrenia affects almost one percent of the world population and has a broadly equal prevalence across ethnic groups. The disease manifests itself in a range of ways, including delusions, disordered thought, hallucinations, blunted emotions, paranoid ideation, and motor abnormalities.

(Xinhua News Agency December 16, 2003)