Teaching resources for genetics

Genetics education is essential for preparing the public to engage in an informed debate about the future of genetics research and how its applications affect human health and the environment. This article provides an overview of genetics education resources that are available online, and is relevant to students in secondary education, health professionals, geneticists and the public. It also describes an integrated approach to teaching genetics, emphasizes the need for continuing teacher education, and encourages the involvement of geneticists and health professionals in providing a teaching resource.     

Genetic testing and primary care: a new ethic for a new setting

For several decades, clinical geneticists have espoused two key ethical principles, nondirectiveness and confidentiality. These principles made a great deal of sense in the highly personal and controversial setting of reproductive genetics. Now that clinical genetics has entered the primary care setting, clinicians are rethinking the strength of their commitment to these traditional norms and they are revamping their ethical priorities. Patients increasingly need advice about whether they should take genetic tests and whether and how they should respond to the test results. Patients also need to know about how this information will impact family members and whether other members of their family should be tested. Clinical geneticists may even consider breaking individual confidentiality in order to prevent harms to family members. Although clinical geneticists do not need to abandon nondirectiveness and confidentiality in this new setting, they may not strictly adhere to these principles in some circumstances in order to benefit patients and their families.     

Genetic testing and primary care: a new ethic for a new setting

For several decades, clinical geneticists have espoused two key ethical principles, nondirectiveness and confidentiality. These principles made a great deal of sense in the highly personal and controversial setting of reproductive genetics. Now that clinical genetics has entered the primary care setting, clinicians are rethinking the strength of their commitment to these traditional norms and they are revamping their ethical priorities. Patients increasingly need advice about whether they should take genetic tests and whether and how they should respond to the test results. Patients also need to know about how this information will impact family members and whether other members of their family should be tested. Clinical geneticists may even consider breaking individual confidentiality in order to prevent harms to family members. Although clinical geneticists do not need to abandon nondirectiveness and confidentiality in this new setting, they may not strictly adhere to these principles in some circumstances in order to benefit patients and their families.     

Unresolved questions in genitalia coevolution: bridging taxonomy,speciation, and developmental genetics

Systematists and geneticists study biological diversity, but they use different approaches that rarely intersect. A very common pattern that is of interest for both researchers is the rapid evolution of genitalia, a trait of significant taxonomic utility in several sexually reproducing animal clades. The idea that both male and female genitalia are species-specific and play a role in reproductive isolation has long been controversial but has recently gained a renewed interest by speciation and developmental geneticists. Here, I highlight six unresolved questions in genitalia coevolution and I argue that systematists, with their well training in comparative morphology, usage of large and geographically diverse collections, and ability to apply molecular genetics techniques, can make important contributions. Such an extension of systematics into the speciation and developmental genetics realms is a promising opportunity to expand “integrative taxonomy” comparisons between DNA and morphology into more explanatory relationships between the two sources of taxonomic data.     

Breaking out of the echo chamber: missed opportunities for genetics at conservation conferences

Genetic approaches have proven useful for addressing various conservation problems, but genetics remains poorly integrated into conservation practice. Multidisciplinary conservation conferences present excellent opportunities for bridging the conservation-genetics gap and facilitating cross-disciplinary projects. We hypothesize that there is a tendency for presentations featuring genetic approaches to be siloed into approach specific sessions, creating an “echo chamber”; geneticists are left talking amongst themselves, hindering collaboration across disciplines. To test this, we reviewed abstracts from the past six Society for Conservation Biology conferences and assessed how presentations featuring genetics/genomics were distributed throughout the respective programs. We found that: the segregation of presentations featuring genetics varied widely between conferences (22–78 %); that no other method or approach was segregated to the same degree; and that the vast majority (99 %) of presentations featuring genetics had broader applications that made them appropriate for other sessions. We argue that segregating genetics at conservation conferences in this way is unhelpful and serves to strengthen the idea that genetics is not relevant to a wider conservation audience. We recommend that; (1) conference organisers endeavour to facilitate the integration of genetics into sessions based on the conservation questions addressed, rather than the methods used to address them; and (2) geneticists make the practical application of their work clear at abstract submission and during presentations. These recommendations are not novel, but our data illustrate a clear need for them to be implemented to better facilitate integration of genetic research that will benefit conservation outcomes.     

Social responsibility in human genetics – a survey

The potential for molecular biological manipulation of human beings is a challenge to the social responsibility of human geneticists. The concept of individual healthcare is compromised by a reductionist approach to human biology which defines health solely in terms of genetics. The ability of professionals working in the fields of molecular biology and human genetics to understand the wider social context of their work and the effects it may have on individual health is rarely discussed. This is a report of a survey of social attitudes and awareness carried out among molecular biologists and human geneticists in Germany. The results reveal differences in the understanding of health and these perceptions are shown to depend on the age and gender of the professionals involved.     

Medical and human genetics 1977: trends and directions

Our field is in a rapid state of evolution. The broader concerns of human genetics not of immediate medical interest such as behavioral genetics are often investigated by persons not trained or identified as human geneticists. Both medical genetics and human genetics in general have prospered when various biologic techniques have been applied to genetic concepts. A search for novel biologic methods may provide new insights and may bridge the gulf between Mendelian and biometric approaches in studies of behavior and of common diseases. Medical geneticists need to broaden their fields of interest to encompass other fields than those of pediatric interest alone. We need to attract more basic scientists. Our field is evolving from a largely research oriented science to a service-oriented specialty. This logical development is a sign of increasing maturity and makes available to the public the results of our research. The resulting stresses and strains need careful watching to prevent their slowing the momentum of our science which can contribute continued insights into the many problems of behavior, health, and disease.     

Population, quantitative and comparative genomics of adaptation in forest trees

High-throughput DNA sequencing and genotyping technologies have enabled a new generation of research in plant genetics where combined quantitative and population genetic approaches can be used to better understand the relationship between naturally occurring genotypic and phenotypic diversity. Forest trees are highly amenable to such studies because of their combined undomesticated and partially domesticated state. Forest geneticists are using association genetics to dissect complex adaptive traits and discover the underlying genes. In parallel, they are using resequencing of candidate genes and modern population genetics methods to discover genes under natural selection. This combined approach is identifying the most important genes that determine patterns of complex trait adaptation observed in many tree populations.     

Academic origin of geneticists--a second look

The academic and geographic origins of 1186 members of the Genetics Society of America whose biographies appear in the fourteenth edition of American Men and Women of Science were researched and the data collected compared to comparable data for 1019 GSA members studied in 1968. In general, the colleges and universities that were major producers of geneticists at both the baccalaureate and doctoral levels in the 1968 study continue to be so. The geographic regions of the United States continue to produce and employ geneticists much as they did in 1968, but in the current study, 17 percent of the geneticists were found to be foreign-born, as compared to only 5.4 percent in 1968. Of the 1186 geneticists, 167 or 14.1 percent were women vs. 12.5 percent in the 1968 study. Over 80 percent of the geneticists were employed in academia, but the percent employed in government, business, and industry was nearly twice what it was in 1968. Compared to 1968, geneticists in the current study were decidedly older, a fact that could portend a threat to the continued viability of the science of genetics in the United States.     

SeqAnt: A web service to rapidly identify and annotate DNA sequence variations

Background  

The enormous throughput and low cost of second-generation sequencing platforms now allow research and clinical geneticists to routinely perform single experiments that identify tens of thousands to millions of variant sites. Existing methods to annotate variant sites using information from publicly available databases via web browsers are too slow to be useful for the large sequencing datasets being routinely generated by geneticists. Because sequence annotation of variant sites is required before functional characterization can proceed, the lack of a high-throughput pipeline to efficiently annotate variant sites can act as a significant bottleneck in genetics research.     

The co-evolutionary genetics of ecological communities

Co-evolution has produced many intriguing adaptations and made significant contributions to biodiversity through the co-adaptive radiations of interacting groups, such as pollinating insects and flowering plants or hosts and endosymbionts. New methods from molecular genetics and comparative genomics, in conjunction with advances in evolutionary genetic theory, are for the first time providing tools for detecting, investigating and understanding the genetic bases of the co-adaptive process and co-speciation. Advances in the emerging field of community genetics, which integrates genetics and community ecology, could revolutionize how co-evolution is studied, how genes are functionally annotated and how conservation geneticists implement preservation strategies.     

Principles, exemplars, and uses of history in early 20th century genetics

This paper is concerned with the uses of history in science. It focuses in particular on Anglo-American genetics and on university textbooks--where the canon of a science is consolidated, as the heterogeneous approaches and controversies of its practice are rendered unified for its reproduction. Tracing the emergence and eventual standardization of geneticists' use of a case-based method of teaching in the 1920s-1950s, this paper argues that geneticists created historical environments in their textbooks-spaces in which students developed an understanding of the laws of genetics through simulations of their discovery and use. Witnessing the unfolding of Mendel's and Morgan's experiments and performing genetic crosses on paper, students learned not only the rules that were explicitly taught as such, but also the experientially-based, tacit skills needed to find and follow these rules. This didactic system taught them how to go on when confronting new situations, and in doing so, provided geneticists with an important disciplinary tool, freeing the first steps of their student's enculturation from the physical infrastructure of the laboratory.     

Failla Memorial Lectures. Radiation genetics: the mouse's view

This report describes the lecturer's visit to Murinia where he consulted with the leading geneticists, including Dr. Maxie Mouse CXIV. The mice are greatly interested in the field of radiation genetics, but they no longer wish the honor of the major responsibility for setting our genetic radiation standards.     

“Bioethics in Action” and Human Population Genetics Research

Recent disputes about human population genetics research have been provoked by the field's political vulnerability (the historic imbalance of power between the geneticists and the people they study) and conceptual vulnerability (the mismatch between scientific and popular understandings of the genetic basis of collective identity). The small, isolated groups often studied by this science are now mobilizing themselves as political subjects, pressing sovereignty claims, and demanding control over the direction and interpretation of research. Negotiations between the geneticists and the people asked to donate DNA have resulted not only in explicit bioethics protocols but also in diffuse anxiety over the incommensurability between expert and non-expert views about genetic evidence for identity claims. This article compares two disputes over genetics research: the Human Genome Diversity Project and the use of genetics to prove identity claims among the Melungeons of Tennessee. The case studies illustrate “bioethics in action”: how particular controversies and interests drive the production of bioethics discourses and techniques (such as informed consent protocols). They also illustrate some limits on the usual apparatus of bioethics in overcoming this science's multiple vulnerabilities.     

Obesity,race and the indigenous origins of health risks among Mexican mestizos

We explore the discourses of Mexican scientists and doctors on genetics and obesity and how these relate to ideas about race, class and national identity. Drawing on interviews with geneticists and doctors treating obese children, the paper makes two contributions to the literature on race and medical science. First, although our data reveal familiar racializing tendencies among geneticists, a more nuanced view is needed, as medical doctors who are sceptical about genetic explanations nevertheless tend to racialize, using more environmental and cultural explanations, which adduce epigenetic mechanisms. Second, rather than focusing on minority groups, as in much literature on racialization and genetics, in Mexico ideas about racialized genetic (and cultural) ancestry also impinge on the majority “mestizo” (mixed-race) population, opening broader panoramas of racialized pathologization. These two factors represent an overall strengthening of discourses of race in Mexico and probably in much of Latin America.     

Medline (PubMed)遗传学杂志文献搜索引擎开发研究

为了方便遗传学工作者快捷、准确地查阅遗传学杂志文献,开发和利用NCBI 的 Medline数据库的遗传学杂志文献资源。从Medline (PubMed)中检索并列出173种有关遗传学的杂志名录,制作了每种杂志及部分杂志年份相应的超级链接,组成一个有关遗传学杂志文献的搜索引擎。此搜索引擎能快捷、准确、动态地检索173种遗传学杂志全部文献题录及部分杂志各年的文献题录,并可在PubMed中进一步检索出文献的摘要和部分全文。 Abstract：To help geneticists look up genetics journals more quickly and exactly,this paper developed this search engine of genetics journals. The paper exploited the search engine with genetics journals sources of Medline database in NCBI, indexed and listed 173 names of genetics journals from Medline. Then obtained one search engine concerning genetics journals after making every journal´s super linkage. The search engine can search out not only all articles´ titles of 173 genetics journals but also some articles’ titles of the journals each year quickly,exactly and variablely. We can further obtain all articles´ abstracts and some full texts in PubMed.     

The 2012 Thomas Hunt Morgan medal: Kathryn V. Anderson

The Genetics Society of America annually honors members who have made outstanding contributions to genetics. The Thomas Hunt Morgan Medal recognizes a lifetime contribution to the science of genetics. The Genetics Society of America Medal recognizes particularly outstanding contributions to the science of genetics over the past 31 years. The George W. Beadle Medal recognizes distinguished service to the field of genetics and the community of geneticists. The Elizabeth W. Jones Award for Excellence in Education recognizes individuals or groups who have had a significant, sustained impact on genetics education at any level, from kindergarten through graduate school and beyond. The Novitski Prize recognizes an extraordinary level of creativity and intellectual ingenuity in solving significant problems in biological research through the application of genetic methods. We are pleased to announce the 2012 awards.     

The near demise and subsequent revival of classical genetics for investigating Caenorhabditis elegans embryogenesis: RNAi meets next-generation DNA sequencing

Molecular genetic investigation of the early Caenorhabditis elegans embryo has contributed substantially to the discovery and general understanding of the genes, pathways, and mechanisms that regulate and execute developmental and cell biological processes. Initially, worm geneticists relied exclusively on a classical genetics approach, isolating mutants with interesting phenotypes after mutagenesis and then determining the identity of the affected genes. Subsequently, the discovery of RNA interference (RNAi) led to a much greater reliance on a reverse genetics approach: reducing the function of known genes with RNAi and then observing the phenotypic consequences. Now the advent of next-generation DNA sequencing technologies and the ensuing ease and affordability of whole-genome sequencing are reviving the use of classical genetics to investigate early C. elegans embryogenesis.     

On the internal dynamics of Mendelian genetics

This paper offers a revisionist account of the development of Mendelian genetics, focusing on the 'problem of the gene', 1900-1930. I examine conflicting claims about the composition, location, and action of genes posed by Bateson, the Morgan group, and Goldschmidt. Their research programs focused on different phenotypes and were based on different assumptions about the nature of genes. The problem of the gene transcended such specific research programs, but their findings had to be taken into account to solve it. The need to resolve conflicting claims drove Mendelian geneticists to exploit the resources and invade the turf of other disciplines in their search for a sound characterization of the gene. The problem of reconciling conflicting views greatly influenced the development of genetics and provided the stimulus for many of the discoveries made by geneticists from 1900 to 1940.     

Eugenics: past, present, and the future.

During the past 20 years there has been a resurgence of interest in the history of the eugenics movements, particularly those of the United States and Germany. Unfortunately, most of these accounts have been published in nonmedical and nongenetic journals, so they are not readily available to geneticists or physicians. The authors of this article are concerned about the lack of information that geneticists, physicians, and students have concerning the origin and progress of these movements. This article provides a short history of the American and German eugenics programs and concludes with a review of their possible relations to our current practices. It is hoped that this will encourage institutions to include, in master's Ph.D., and M.D. programs in human genetics, lectures, seminars, and journal clubs on the topic of eugenics.