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Genetics Overview
What is a Gene?
 Genes are very small structures inside almost every cell of
the body. Genes are the instructions, or blueprints, that tell our body how to
grow and develop, build necessary proteins, and thus determine an individual's
characteristics, such as eye color and blood type. It is estimated that there are about
35,000 genes in humans, each of which is an instruction guiding the cells of the body
to grow and survive. Genes come in pairs and are made of strands of genetic material
called deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA. They line up similar to beads on a string to form
larger structures called chromosomes. Genetic disorders are caused when the instruction
coded by a particular gene is changed and the gene can no longer perform its proper function.
[back to main Genetics Overview page]
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HOW GENES ARE NAMED
You may wonder how genes are named. As you may have guessed,
some names are abbreviations for the full gene names. Other
genes are named after similar genes in other organisms. More ...
WHAT IS A CHROMOSOME?
Just as genes come in pairs, chromosomes also come in pairs.
Each cell in our body has 23 pairs of chromosomes (for a total
of 46); one member of each pair is inherited from the mother
and the other is inherited from the father. More ...
HOW CHROMOSOME ABNORMALITIES HELP US FIND GENES
Genetic researchers use many different tools and strategies to
look at the genetic material (DNA) inside our cells to find the
exact gene(s) that cause a genetic disorder such as autism. More ...
HOW GENOME SCREENS HELP US FIND GENES
In order to determine the genes that may be involved, scientists
also perform what are referred to as "genome screens." To do this
they use maps of the chromosomes in order to look for genes. More ...
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