Genes, Race, and Medicine
Discover Magazine continues its three part "Learning Series" of articles on the influence of genetics and race on medical science.
The second part of the series profiles the "boring Finns" and their unique contribution to genetic medicine. The people of Finland are fairly unique in that there is uniformity in their genes due to the centuries of isolation and intermarriage -- the result of which has left Finns with a large set of hereditary disorders. Their uniformity is great for researchers since the human race as a whole hasn't changed much since we emerged from Africa 50,000 years ago. We all carry the same genes -- the same genes that make us susceptible to many ailments -- and they are the same genes that have been around for 50,000 years. In the Finns however, a hereditary trail for ailments can be traced -- to parents, grandparents -- across generations. The rest of the world has interbred so much, or has such poor medical records over generations, that such a trail would be near impossible to find. The Finnish boon for researchers is helping to find genetic links to many ailments that are universal to the human population. The research will hopefully lead to new treatments and understanding of the many disease of the human race. Hopefully the understanding of genetic homogeneity will lead to tolerance for our heterogeneity -- after all, the way we look is only our genetic response to our environment.
The second part of the series profiles the "boring Finns" and their unique contribution to genetic medicine. The people of Finland are fairly unique in that there is uniformity in their genes due to the centuries of isolation and intermarriage -- the result of which has left Finns with a large set of hereditary disorders. Their uniformity is great for researchers since the human race as a whole hasn't changed much since we emerged from Africa 50,000 years ago. We all carry the same genes -- the same genes that make us susceptible to many ailments -- and they are the same genes that have been around for 50,000 years. In the Finns however, a hereditary trail for ailments can be traced -- to parents, grandparents -- across generations. The rest of the world has interbred so much, or has such poor medical records over generations, that such a trail would be near impossible to find. The Finnish boon for researchers is helping to find genetic links to many ailments that are universal to the human population. The research will hopefully lead to new treatments and understanding of the many disease of the human race. Hopefully the understanding of genetic homogeneity will lead to tolerance for our heterogeneity -- after all, the way we look is only our genetic response to our environment.
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