While the human species originated in Africa, when they migrated on to the rest of the world, they were forced to adapt to a whole new way of living. There were new places to explore, new pathogens that were unveiled and new food sources that had to be discovered. Survival became a completely different way …
Detecting Positive Natural Selection From Genetic Data Read More »
The FDA has been trying to decide how to regulate direct-to-consumer genetic tests in America. These tests, sold by companies like Ancestry and 23andMe sequence the customer’s DNA and provide detailed reports on ancestry and health traits. In 2011, one of these FDA meetings appeared to agree that health-related genomic tests needed to be conducted through …
People Have A Right To Access Their Genetic Data Read More »
In a recent paper that was published in Molecular Psychiatry, there was a claim that was made by Stan Skafidas that ‘a simple genetic test could be used to predict autism risk from birth’. It is believed that the genetic prediction capability that was suggested in this paper would be difficult even for common diseases …
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a highly heritable condition. It’s characterized by deficits in social communication, the presence of repetitive behaviors, and/or stereotyped interests.It has already been proven by previous studies that genetic factors contribute strongly to the onset of Autism, yet the search for specific risk genes for ASD has only recently begun to …
Incorporating False Discovery Rates Into Genetic Association in Autism Read More »
Scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory have reported in the past week that they have sequenced the “HeLa”. This is the genome of the Henrietta Lacks cell line. The report was accepted with some concerns as many people were unsure why scientists were testing and carrying out experiments on this cell line. The HeLa cell …
Henrietta Lacks’s Genome Sequence Has Been Publicly Available For Years Read More »
In October of 1992, genetics researchers made a potentially groundbreaking discovery.Their findings were published in Nature, and stated that a genetic variant in the angiotensin-converting enzyme ACE appeared to alter an individual’s risk of having a heart attack.The study involved a total of over 500 individuals from four categories. After publication of these results, there …
Size Matters, And Other Lessons From Medical Genetics Read More »
It seems that peer-reviewed scientific journals are the holy grail for papers. We are encouraged to believe that any paper worth reading will be in a peer-reviewed journal. But is this really the case? Well, let’s look first at the process of getting published in a peer-reviewed journal. Peer-Review JournalsThere are two steps to getting your paper …
Genome-wide association studies, also known as GWAS, have been used extensively over the last 5 years by genetic researchers.GWAS are generally used to allow researchers to discover variants in genomes that indicate the presence of a particular disease.With this information, researchers can begin to understand how genes contribute to diseases and they can begin to …
Studies that sequence the entirety of an individual’s DNA are known as whole-genome studies. They can generate incredible amounts of information valuable to the researchers and the participants of a study.However, when you study all of a person’s DNA, invariably you get information and results that are not linked to the study. These incidental findings …
