FUNDAMENTALS OF GENETICS

 Human beings are all similar, but no two people are exactly alike. 

 Genetics tells us that we have an inherited biological blueprint that includes blood type, eye color, and height.  It is the study of heredity (or the transmission of characteristics from one parent to offspring). 

How you look is determined by instructions in your body provided from your mother and father.  These instructions are carried on genes (factors that determine a specific trait). 

Thousands of genes are needed to produce the intricate recipe resulting in a single person. 

 A person inherits one gene for a certain trait from his or her mother, and another gene for the trait from his or her father.

Some traits are dominant (a trait that shows in an individual) and recessive (a trait that does not show). 

Gregory Mendel (an Austrian monk) laid the foundations of the science of genetics with his experiments on pea plants. 

When genes are working properly, our bodies develop and function smoothly. But should a single gene - even a tiny segment of a single gene - go awry, the effect can be dramatic: deformities and disease, even death.

In the past 20 years, amazing new techniques have allowed scientists to learn a great deal about how genes work and how genes are linked to disease. Increasingly, researchers are able to identify mutations, changes within genes that can lead to specific disorders. Tests for gene mutations make it possible not only to detect diseases already in progress but also, in certain situations, to foresee diseases yet to come.

This new ability raises both high hopes and grave concerns. On the one hand, predictive gene testing holds out the possibility of saving thousands of lives through prevention or early detection. On the other, the implications of test results are enormous, not only for the individual but also for relatives who share this genetic legacy, and for society as a whole.

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