During the past year, the Drosophila genome has been sequenced. More than 6
0% of genes implicated in human disease have Drosophila orthologues. Develo
pments in RNA-mediated interference and homologous recombination have made
'reverse genetics' feasible in Drosophila. Conventional Drosophila genetics
is being used increasingly to place human disease genes of unknown functio
n in the context of functional pathways.