It seems that each month brings the discovery of a new gene thought to be responsible for a different genetic disease. Often these discoveries bring hopes of early detection or even a cure. One interesting aspect of genetic diseases is that some forms of a given disease are quite severe (i.e. fatal in childhood) while other forms of the same disease have much milder symptoms. In fact, in all likelihood we all carry mutations that alter the function of some of our genes to imperceptible levels.

Questions: What are the causes of genetic disease? Why are the symptoms of a given genetic disease so variable?

8/22/04 Copyright (C) 2004, Jonathan Monroe, monroejd@jmu.edu. All rights reserved.
URL: http://csm.jmu.edu/biology/courses/bio220/qotw6.html