The proposed model is applied to analyze the data arising from studies of HER2+ breast cancer and Alzheimer's disease.<h4>Availability and implementation</h4>The dataset and source code are available on GitHub (https://github.com/StaGill/DiSTect) and Zenodo (https://zenodo.org/records/17127211).<h4>Supplementary information</h4>Supplementary data are provided online at Bioinformatics. The gene discussed is ERBB2; the disease is early-onset autosomal dominant Alzheimer disease.