Eugenics Research

Eugenics has been researched and thought about for years. The thought of creating the perfect child has been around for decades! Eugenics originally started around the WWII era. Charles Darwin was actually the first man that realized that in society rich people should be having more healthy children and bigger families. However, in this era, that was not the case. Scientists that wanted to explore the gene pools were called eugenicists.  Eugenicists wanted to find out the cause of sickness in the poor population and how they could possibly change the amount of diseases babies had by experimenting with gene pools. Eugenecisits thought that by doing this, they could prevent poverty, feeble-mindedness-including manic depression, schizophrenia, alcoholism, rebelliousness, criminality, nomadness, and prostitution. This was surely thought of as degenerative to the human gene pool by people that didn't quite understand the whole situation and what these scientists were trying to do. If we have the chance to save a baby's life, wouldn't they potentially try to do this? Yes, tweaking the genetics a little bit are somewhat like "playing God" but if we can help someone for the better I think it would be worth the risk.
     There were some great and fearless leaders who frequently read up on eugenics and studied and tried to understand the whole concept. In fact, Adolf Hitler read on Eugenics and believe it or not, the blonde haired-blue eyed men that people thought were to be Nazi's were actually somewhat created about two decades before Hitler even took power! When it came to Eugenics, America was the main founder of this power. But, it was Germany that really accelled and rapidly tried to find new cures. In Germany people were being taken from their homes, and mental institutions, etc. and were being treated. The sterilization numbers were climbing to as many as 5,000 treatments per month!
     As you can see, Eugenecists were right about having the power to scientifically evaluate the gene pool and locate the problem with the baby and be able to fix this problem. The numbers of treatments and sterilizations increased by unthinkable numbers! This data collection below is actually a few years old too, so you can imagine the amounts of treatments now!
                                         

Number of Sterilized From each Condition







• Hereditary-Feeble-Mindedness-200,000
• Schizophrenia- 80,000
• Epilepsy-60,000
• Manic-depressive-Psychosis-20,000
• Serious Physical Deformities- 20,000
• Hereditary Deafness- 20,000
• Hereditary Alcoholism-10,000
• Hereditary blindness- 4,000
• Huntington's Chorea-600
• Total- 410,600

Sources:
https://people.creighton.edu/~idc24708/Genes/Eugenics/History%20of%20Eugenics.htm
http://www.emmerich1.com/EUGENICS.htm
http://www.eugenicsarchive.org/eugenics/

Human Chromosomes Webquest

1. What are the three main parts of a chromosome, as viewed under a microscope? The three main and visible parts of the chromosome in the microscope is the long arm, the short arm and the centromere which is the middle of the chromosome.


2. List at least four human diseases that have been mapped to the X chromosome. The X chromosome can actually have a lot of diseases. The four most common types of  mapped diseases include Menkes Syndrome, Alport  Syndrome, Duchenne muscular dystrophy, and Adrenoleukodystrophy. The picture below is a human chromosome so you as the reader can get a visual understanding.

3. When looking at the summary on genes show the  functions, processes, and components it is thought to be involved in (what’s it do?). Looking at the information on genes, you can see different problems such as how chromosomes are able to carry different diseases. In the Alport Syndrome, different chromosomes are two recessive traits the chromosomes carry to the disease.

4. What disease did you choose and what gene is/genes are associated with this disease? The trait passed down that I picked was deafness. I picked this because I'm fascinated by the fact that people can adapt to not hearing a thing their whole life! I looked at a few websites to understand why people become deaf if it is a problem in the womb or a genetic problem. I read that is in fact a genetic problem.

5. On what chromosome are these genes/is this gene located? I looked on the websites and other websites on google and I could not find the certain chromosome this gene was located at or linked to. 

Questions on clinical synopsis in the OMIM entry:

1. When was the disease first reported in the scientific literature? This was first reported in 1992.
2. What are some of the clinical symptoms of this disease? I don't know if being deaf is a symptom considering this is the disease itself and no side effects or other symptoms (hearing loss)
3. What lab findings (gene function or biochemical data) are associated with the disease?  I only found one known function associated with this disease. This function was called the "gap junction". The gap junctions are formed by humans.
4. What type of inheritance governs this disease?  There are four different types of inheritance: Autosomal Dominant Inheritance, Autosomal Recessive Inheritance, X-linked Inheritance,  and Mitochondrial Inheritance

Below are the main sources I used to find the necessary information to perform this lab:

1. http://www.deafchildworldwide.info/childhood_deafness/causes_of.html

2. http://www.mydeafness.com/how-do-you-become-deaf/

3. http://www.pbs.org/wnet/soundandfury/culture/deafhistory.html