In an alternative approach, genes encoding a small number of proteins implicated in DNA repair pathways in other eukaryotes are not apparent in the D. discoideum genome including ATM (Block and Lees-Miller, 2005; Hudson et al., 2005), a damage-activated protein kinase whose mutation in humans leads to Ataxia Telangiectasia. The gene discussed is ATM; the disease is ataxia telangiectasia.