Genetic selection of embryos

England has allowed the genetic selection of embryos for the purpose of preventing transmission from parents to children of familial adenomatous polyposis. It is a kind of a hereditary colorectal cancer that develops several years after birth. The United Kingdom was already approved by preimplantation genetic diagnosis, but this is the first time that its use is authorized to prevent a disease. Permission was requested by a team from University College London, who has received permission from the British authorities to carry out a selection of embryos.

For now, the decision affects four pairs carrying the gene responsible for this type of colon cancer who have undergone artificial fertilization techniques. As have a high chance of transmitting this gene to their offspring, specialists are not able to put the embryos in which this genetic anomaly detection. The response of various sectors of both the science and the wider community was immediate, and promises to be fierce ethical debate.

The gene that causes asthma

Scientists at the University of Toronto, Canada, found for the first time a gene involved in 20 percent of asthma cases. The gene discovery, which was cloned, to find more effective drugs for the treatment of this disease increases dramatically throughout the world.

In about 5 years, ia new medication will be available and will be developed by a Swiss company that is investigating what protein the gene encodes found, for a molecule capable of blocking the action of it.

Consumption of alcohol as the genes

The presence or absence of a gene could be the explanation why some people have a high tolerance to alcohol, while others are only smell marean a glass of whiskey. Japanese researchers have recently confirmed that the absence of a portion of genetic material inherited-called "Fyn" is responsible for that rodents are hypersensitive to the hypnotic effects of alcohol, or which results in the classic box borrachera.

Subjected to the same consumption of alcohol, the mice with the gene did not show any change, while those who do not inherit from their parents, showed absolute drunkenness that lasted hours. The researchers believe that this genetic background might also verified between nsosotros: it is equivalent to the search of Fyn in human chromosomes, which would detect, from childhood to the future "drunk" and prevented the matter.

Exception to the law of inheritance Mendel

A group of geneticists from Purdue University in Indiana (USA), claims to have found in the plant Arabidopsis the corrected version of a defective gene inherited from their parents. Specifically, the plant was a carrier of two mutant copies of the gene, which allegedly was believed hitherto been impossible to have a normal offspring.

The researchers analyzed the mutated gene known as Hoth or exalted, for which the plant is not defective opened their flowers, and found that it had changed in 10% of the specimens that reproduced. It is as if a roofer.

in its genome, which has not yet been able to decipher, had retrieved the correct sequence in their genes. If confirmed the discovery, would be a rare exception in the laws inherited enunciated by the father of genetics, the Austrian monk Gregor Mendel in the nineteenth century.

The intelligence, innate or acquired?

The intellectual capacity does not depend on a pair of genes, but several. Is it innate or acquired? If we look at the genealogy of some families, could be tempted to believe in the legacy of talent.

Some scientists point out that intelligence is a 80 per cent of heredity and environment of 20 percent. For example, Johann Sebastian Bach belonged to a race in which 57 men, it is assumed that women were not counted, only six had no connection whatsoever with the music.

But the thing is not so clear.
It has shown that the intelligence quotient (IQ) of children adopted by parents with a socially privileged, and with some socio-professional category, is higher than those adopted children in an environment less favored.

It has also been observed that children of parents with higher education have an IQ higher than those whose parents only have studies below. But it is very difficult to know what percentage of hereditary and how much there is for genetic.

Can not establish whether the parents who conducted the studies were conducted because genetically smarter, or just any additional means to carry them out. Nor can we ensure that the IQ of children adopted in a more favored to be higher due to the influence of the environment; inheritance of their biological parents too.

Genetics of the children

A certain air of family
The child inherits about 50 percent of the genetic heritage of their parents. Most of the biological characteristics, height, eye color and hair, the shape of hands, longevity, disease resistance, ..., are broadcast in hereditary form.

Often, these characters are controlled by many genes. This explains the range of colors that can present their eyes, the diversity of stature, the various skin tones, the almost infinite variety of hair color, and so on.

Some qualities are transmitted with predominance: black or dark hair is imposed on the clear, blond or reddish; hair curled due to Lazio; dark skin tone prevails over the white, the eyes of prevails over round ... It is also the dominant presence of the pits on the cheeks or the chin.

In the shape of your head, rounded or oval, usually a clear distinctive family, influence such other factors as the position of the baby in the womb during pregnancy. The stature upward. In the event that both parents are high, their descendants, to be sure, it will be even more.

There is a 50 percent chance of transmitting the sons baldness, and being hairy, especially in hands and fingers, dominates the absence of hair.

In their eyes, the color blue brings everything to lose. For example, if the genes of the mother have the quality to pass the blue color of the eyes, and the father, the brown color, all children will have brown eyes (a dominant gene).

Eternal Life - The immortality

Can achieve no longer be a utopia.
Scientists at the American University of San Francisco have discovered a gene in an insect that could controlling longevity.

This gene, the insect once asleep, reduces the production of insulin and prevents ageing, without affecting the metabolism or fertility.

The new studies are investigating whether it could act similarly in humans. From here, opens a new way to determine life expectancy in vertebrates.

This could be the result of the difference between this pair of genes.

The complete sequence of the human chromosome

A group of scientists completes the sequence of the chromosome 1, associated to 350 illnesses

An international team of scientists has completed the sequence of the chromosome 1, the one bigger than all and associated to some 350 illnesses, according to those responsible for the investigation.

The complete sequence of that chromosome that contain 8% of the whole genetic human information and 3.141 genes, was published in the last number of the scientific British magazine Nature.


This attainment is the last chapter of the human genome, according to the scientists that have participated in the investigation, to the front of which figure the Institute Wellcome Trust Sanger in Hinxton, in Cambridgeshire (southeast of England), and the University Duke in Durham, in New Carolina (EE UU).

Several types of cancer and Alzheimer

Some 350 illnesses are related with modifications of the chromosome 1, among them several types of cancer and neurological problems, as the wrong of Alzheimer or the Parkinson's disease, the investigators indicated. In fact, the complete published sequence this Wednesday you have already been used to identify more than a thousand of new genes and the scientists hope you contribute to find new treatments and diagnostics of illnesses.

"The publication of the sequence of the last and human bigger chromosome completes the history of the human" genome, Simón explains to Gregory, in charge of the project in the Institute Wellcome Trust Sanger. "The chromosome 1 contain fascinating histories of the biology of the chromosomes, of our evolution and our health", you have assured.

Ten years to complete the studio

Each human chromosome is compound for a molecule of DNA in form of a double helix and integrated by millions of chemical bases represented by the letters TO, C, T and G. In short, the Chromosome 1 contain 223.569.464 bases of the genetic code that, in the event of being treated mecanográficamente, they would occupy 60.000 pages.

The investigation team, formed by about 150 British and American scientists, you have taken ten years in completing the studio.

They find genes related with the prostate cancer

For all it is known that that of prostate is in the entire world one of the types of more communio cancer in men, among other things, because your detection is based on a blood test, a method that have an error wide margin.

Now, a discovery could throw light on your early detection and therefore your prevention and cure, since they have been possible to identify seven genes associated with prostate tumors.

To discover them, they were analyzed to more than 10.000 individuals, observing that these genes are present in more than half of all the cases of prostate cancer. And some of these genes, you say the studio published in the magazine Nature Genetics, they could also help to the development of new treatments.

"These results will allow us to carry out genetic" "profiles to analyze the risk that the men have of developing the illness" the discoverers they assure. The genetic profile requires to extract DNA of the patient and to analyze it to see if you have the genetic variations that it would put it in risk of prostate tumors.

Also, this discovery will allow to hurry the development of drugs", they continue. Assuring the "obtaining of a specific medicine in one or two years."

The Drop - Hereditary Illness

The drop is a hereditary illness, almost exclusive of the mature male, due to an abnormality of the protean metabolism that produce an increase of the uric acid of the blood and your deposit in the cartilages articulares and sometimes also in the kidneys. The uric acid derives of the purines that, in turn, they are a component of the nucleoproteínas, present in the cellular cores. You are an endogenous uric acid, coming from the replacement of the nucleoproteínas of the body, and an exogenous uric acid that enter with the foods. The normal concentration of uric acid in the blood, is from 5 to 6 mg for 100 cc. Your deletion with the urination depends on the power supply, but, for average, you are of 1 g newspaper.

The sanguine uric acid is elevated in the drop sick person. This alteration is due to an increase of your formation and a decrease of the renal deletion. The rich food intake in purines can precipitate a joint inflammation attack, to cause a renal colic or to aggravate the pains of the chronic drop.

The diet is the base of the treatment of the gouty one. During the acute attack, the power supply should only consist on milk descremada, boiled rice and fresh fruits. To favor the urinary deletion the uric acid, they will take liquids in abundance. When the cross-reference begins, eggs can be added, flesh gelatina, pàsta of soup, butter and oleum; some days later the diet is completed with vegetables, vegetables, tender flesh and fish target. The richest foods in purines are the liver, the kidneys and the brains, the blue fish and the shellfish, the red flesh and the hunt; all they should be deleted, total and definitively, of the diet of the gouty one.

The treatment medicamentoso is founded in the management of drugs that you/they impede the uric acid formation and in others that favor your deletion with the urination. The acute attacks improve with the colchicine and with antinflamatorios of hormonal type, as the glucocorticoids, or synthetic, as the phenybutazone.