Genetic prophecy : beyond the double helix / Zsolt Harsanyi, Richard Hutton.

  • Harsanyi, Zsolt, 1944-
Date:
[1981], ©1981
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: Genetic prophecy : beyond the double helix / Zsolt Harsanyi, Richard Hutton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Genes As Prophets resources, and its rocky, inhospitable interior had long pro¬ tected its essential character. Invaders such as the Phoeni¬ cians, Greeks, and Romans had occupied its low-lying areas; but when they departed, as they invariably did, the Sardin¬ ians returned to their old ways. For scores of generations, Sardinians have almost always married other Sardinians; even those who now take jobs in Germany and Italy come home to their native villages to marry. As a result, the is¬ land's people have evolved a relatively pure gene pool, pro¬ tected by geography and uniquely influenced by the en¬ vironment. Genetically, the island is like an oil painting that, despite minor restorations, retains its original colors and character. For researchers like Marcello Siniscalco of the Sloan- Kettering Institute in New York, Sardinia provided a natu¬ rally controlled population—a living laboratory for human genetics. Siniscalco and others began to flock to the island to trace the hereditary patterns of disease. At the same time, various scientific institutions outside of Sardinia were examining the origins of an odd disease called hemolytic anemia. One form of hemolytic anemia is heredi¬ tary in nature. It arises when the red blood cells actually begin to explode in the blood vessels. When the ruptured cells reach the kidneys, they are filtered out and excreted, causing the victims to urinate blood. If the amount of de¬ struction is minimal, the loss of blood results in lethargy; if it is severe, the disease can kill. Hemolytic anemia can have many origins. But in 1956, a scientific group from Chicago reported that almost everyone with the hereditary form of the disease was lacking a single enzyme called glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (or G-6- PD), which forms a crucial link in the chain of energy pro¬ duction for the red blood cells. When the chain is cut, and [ >3 ]