The team of scientists, including doctors from US, France, Germany and the UK, has studied more than 2,000 children and they found genetic markers that dramatically increase a child's risk for asthma. These markers are located on chromosome 17, and children with this marker had higher levels of a new gene called ORMDL3 in their blood, which occurs in higher amounts in children with asthma.

The study concluded that the presence of the disease-associated version of ORMDL3 increases the risk of asthma by 60-70 percent.

The discovery could lead to new methods of treatment, the authors said. "In terms of an asthma gene, there have been quite a few reports but not one that can be clearly reproduced in samples," said Goncalo Abecasis, associate professor at the U-M School of Public Health.

Asthma, an inflammatory disease causing wheezing, coughing and labored breathing that can be life threatening, affects about 7-10 percent of children in the United States and one child in seven in the United Kingdom. Modern treatments of asthma consist in daily inhaled steroid therapy.

"I think eventually it will lead to new therapies because it points to a specific biological molecular pathway. Once we understand the biology and we know the players, it's possible to target with specific drugs." said Dr. Miriam Moffatt of the National Heath and Lung Institute, Imperial College, London, and one of the first authors of the study.