Three technologies that changed genetics

Inm-8: Assisted Reproductive Technologies and Genetics

Genetic causes have a considerable involvement in infertility. Well-known examples are some chromosomal translocations or sex-chromosomal abnormalities and Y-chromosome deletions. The most common chromosomal aberrations associated especially with severe oligo- and azoospermia are sex chromosome aneuploidies and chromosomal translocations. Consequently, occurrence of aneuploid embryos will lower...

Evolutionary Genetics: Changed Sex Determination in Honeybees

In several insects and fish, and probably some mammals, the gene controlling the male-female switch has changed during evolution. It now seems that this has also happened in honeybees, where the sex-determining gene has now been shown to be a duplicate of another Hymenopteran sex-determining gene.

“Not Everything That Is Faced Can Be Changed, but Nothing Can Be Changed Until It Is Faced”: A Response to Recent Commentaries

The Virus That Changed My World

When I first read this little poem in The Lancet in January 2003 (Heikkinen and Jarvinen 2003), it elicited little more than a bemused chortle. There are few who would deny the paradox that for all the medical advances providing cures for multitudinous diseases afflicting the human condition, there remains a large hole in the understanding of and treatment for the common cold. We know that it i...

The quarter that changed the world

BACKGROUND The California Department of Public Health (CDPH), California Tobacco Control Program (CTCP) is one of the longest-running comprehensive tobacco control programmes in the USA, resulting from a 1988 ballot initiative that added a 25-cent tax on each pack of cigarettes and a proportional tax increase on other tobacco products. This programme used a social norm change approach to reduce...