Research in the field of genetics is still a mystery to experts. Experts have dedicated their lives to studying genetics to find the causes for numerous things including diseases, mutations, and other defects that appear in humans, but most come up empty handed due to how little is actually known about how genes operate. A Canadian research team has unlocked one of the great mysteries in the field of genetics, having proven conclusively that bad genes don’t always mean that you are destined to inherit bad diseases.
Some diseases that may be inherited through bad genes
Some diseases believed to be carried genetically include cystic fibrosis, breast cancer, hemophilia, Parkinson’s disease, and sickle cell disease. These and many others are passed down through a person’s personal genome–that is, they inherited them from their parents good or bad genes, and their parent’s parent’s good or bad genes–so on and so forth until they have ended up with the hereditary disease. This is why patients with a history of cancer in their family are at a much higher risk of getting cancer themselves.
According to the University of Toronto’s newly published article in Cell, the likelihood of inheriting a disease is less dependent on heretics and more dependent on the individual than ever thought before, “Many mutations cause genetic disorders. However, two people inheriting the same mutation often have different severity of symptoms, and this is partly genetic. The effects of genetic background on mutant phenotypes are poorly understood, but predicting them is critical for personalized medicine.”
What does this new research reveal about genetics?’
University of Toronto researchers have now shown that receiving the mutations in genes that cause these terrible diseases doesn’t necessarily mean that there is going to be a high level of severity associated with the mutations received. The degree to which the disease affects the individual is contingent upon factors which lie buried in the DNA and not necessarily bad genes.
According to the professor Andy Fraser at the University of Toronto, “We have shown how genetic background–that is, the unique set of DNA letters present in any person’s genome – influences the severity of any genetic disease.”
How can experts take what they’ve learned here and apply the information in a way that will help humanity?
This eye opening information will change the way that we view genetics in terms of medicine. Knowing how the severity of a disease relies so heavily on the individuals DNA rather than bad genes in their DNA having been passed down to them, will allow the focus to shift when studying the debilitating mutations. This breakthrough in genetic research could potentially save millions of lives.
