Genetics

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Genetics I have always been interested in science, especially of the human body and how it works. Then we had a lab where we went over a little about genetics. I couldn’t help but to be curious about it. I had never given too much thought about it before, besides it having to do with the human body, and I think that is because I never really knew what it was or the different areas involved in genetics. Genetics is about genes and heredity, which is the passing of traits from parent to offspring. The founder of modern genetics was an Austrian monk, Gregor Mendel. He planted peas at the monastery, as they develop quickly, produce abundant offspring, and are easy to grow. It is also easy to control which plant mates with which. (Biology, the Essentials, pg. 173) Mendel was trying to figure out why some traits disappear, only to reappear in a later generation. He noticed that, after cross-breeding some peas, that some traits were hidden by other traits. He called the trait that was masking the other dominant, and the one being masked recessive. (Biology, the Essentials, pg. 174) Today, what Mendel called dominant or recessive traits, biologist reserve for alleles (Biology, the Essentials, pg. 174). An allele is a different form of genes. The unit of heredity on a chromosome is known as a gene. Dominant alleles are symbolized with a capital letter and need only one copy to be present for an individual to have the trait. On the other hand, a recessive allele is symbolized by a lower case letter and two copies need to be present for an individual to have the trait. (Lab 7 hand out paper) My interest in genetics was further peaked when I started watching a show called Medical Mystery Diagnosis. I watched an episode where this couple had... ... middle of paper ... ... an individual can have two of the three alleles. The A and B alleles are dominant, with the A allele code for the A protein on the red blood cells and the B allele code for the B protein on the red blood cells. The O allele is recessive and is the absence of the A or B protein. There is so much to genetics that I have never realized. I could never learn everything about genetics, as there are new things being discovered every day. I can’t wait to see what else I can learn about genetics, and how it affects individuals. Resource Page Cerebrotendinous Xanthomatosis: A Treatable Lipid Storage Disease. Pubmed. 7 September 2009. Web. 25 April 2014. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19696711 Hoefnagles, M. (2013). Biology, the Essentials. 1221 Avenue of the Americas, New York: The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Lab 7. Genetics. Hand out. 2014. Murray State College.

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