Genetics Essay

Genetics Essay

Genetics Update Essay At the beginning of the conference Sam Rhine gave us a basic background of genetics. He discussed Victor McKusic , the father of genetics, and how we owed all we knew to him. He talked about ideograms and how through this technology we can find the location of a gene on a specific chromosome. Due to this we can pin point why diseases such as Down syndrome occur. Another topic of discussion was about how common diseases such as Type Two Diabetes, Cystic Fibrosis, HIV, AIDS, and Fetal Alcohol Syndrome are complex, therefore harder to treat, and how rare diseases such as Type One Diabetes and Rheumatoid Arthritis are simple. To diagnose the possibility of getting such diseases lies within the genome, the total genetic information of a particular organism. This is where the Human Genome Project was born. The majority of this project was Dr. Francis Collins work. The Human Genome Project consisted of twenty countries and lasted a total of fifteen years. It began in 2000, and produced the largest DNA sequence ever assembled. This identified the 30,000 genes in human DNA. Its goal was to determine the relationship between DNA makeup and human traits and predisposition. It was a success. Sam Rhine also discussed human quantitative traits. These traits are continuous. They include height, finger print ridge count, blood pressure, blood glucose level, and intelligence. Over all the results showed a bell shaped distribution. The last topics of discussion were cloning and stem cell research. Cloning originated in animals, but now we have advanced in scientific research and have been able to stride towards success in cellular cloning in humans. This may one day be used to save a person’s life by reproducing functioning organs and tissues for non-functioning parts of the body. Stem cell research is proving to be just as successful as cloning. If we can dedifferentiate cells back to their stem cell period and give them the right signal as to what type of...

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