1.   Amgen disclosed today that its scientists developed an experimental shot containing a protein that corrects a defective obesity gene in mice.

2.   And no obesity genes or crash diets are involved.

3.   B. POSSIBLE NEW OBESITY GENE Scientists may have discovered a new obesity gene.

4.   But mice with a damaging mutation in the obesity gene make no leptin, and they eat without restraint.

5.   But Rink stressed that although the obesity gene was a key component of weight regulation, it was not the only one.

6.   Friedman and his colleagues discovered the mutated obesity gene, named ob, and Rockefeller has applied for a patent on the ob hormone, leptin.

7.   In separate studies, researchers from Amgen Inc. and Hoffmann-La Roche Inc. injected mice with a protein designed to correct a defective obesity gene.

8.   Would eliminating an obesity gene be therapy or eugenics?

9.   He and colleagues also found a human gene that strongly resembles the mouse obesity gene, and it may play a similar role in people, Friedman said.

10.   Scientists identify obesity gene that may regulate weight.