Jun 25 2009
It’s not enough to teach genetics, says Michael Dougherty, director of education for the American Society for Human Genetics. It has to be taught in the right way.
“Current teaching practices may be producing a public that is unprepared to participate effectively as medical consumers in a world where personalized medicine will rely increasingly on genetic [...]
Nov 25 2008
For many people, the first and last place they will ever study genetics is high school biology class. So it is crucial that these classes prepare people to deal with the barrage of genetic advancements that are increasingly impacting everyday life.
Unfortunately, many high school biology courses are not doing such a good job of communicating [...]
Nov 14 2008
The American Society for Human Genetics (ASHG) has released a statement outlining a set of recommendations for genetic ancestry testing.
At a press briefing on Thursday, members of the ASHG Ancestry Testing Task Force Committee discussed two main themes: the need for clear communication about the limitations of genetic ancestry testing, and the need for [...]
Nov 13 2008
When I was 12 years old I did my first Punnett square and decided that genetics was absolutely, most definitely the coolest thing ever.
When I was 13 years old they started the Human Genome Project. The task of sequencing all three billion base pairs in a person’s genome was the most enormous project I [...]
Nov 13 2008
The pace of human genetic research shows no signs of slowing. SNP chip technology is allowing researchers to make connections between DNA and disease in ways that were never before possible. Fast, cheap whole genome sequencing, and the avalanche of data it will bring, is just around the corner. And for the first [...]
