Friedreich's Ataxia is a recessively inherited disease; meaning a person develops the disorder only when he or she inherits genes from both parents. About 1 in 90 people of European ancestry carry the FRDA gene and most of them do not know it. There is a higher incidence of FRDA in the French/Acadian population of south Louisiana. In 1996, an international group of scientists -- with cooperation and support from patients, patient families and their physicians --identified the gene, cloned it, and decoded its sequence. The gene (called X25) was found on the 9th chromosome and carries the instructions for making a protein that was not previously known. The protein was named after the disorder and is called frataxin.