Modifying Mendel Redux

Modifying Mendel: approaches for identification of susceptibility alleles for human cardiovascular malformations.

Congenital cardiovascular malformations (CVMs) are the most common birth defect, affecting approximately 8 per 1000 live births. Roughly 25% of CVMs occur in the context of multiple congenital anomalies or as part of a genetic syndrome, while the other 75% of individuals present as an isolated, nonsyndromic CVM.1 Genomic disorders comprise the majority of syndomic CVMs, exemplified by aneuploid...

How many neutrophils are enough (redux, redux)?

Many chemotherapeutic regimens produce neutropenia, which predisposes to microbial infection. However, not all neutropenic individuals develop infections, so the ability to predict this outcome would be a powerful clinical tool. In this issue of the JCI, Malka et al. describe a dynamic system model of neutrophil bactericidal activity that confirms and extends the concept of critical neutrophil ...

Mendel might get dizzy.

Building on Mendel

Twelve months after the first successes of an ambitious project to commemorate Mendel in the abbey where he carried out his work, efforts are now turning to the gardens, perhaps some of the most intellectually fruitful patches of ground in the world. Restoration work in the abbey, in the beautiful Czech city of Brno, reveals a building in which little has changed since Mendel’s time where it is...

Did Mendel cheat?