Genetic Counseling

Description of Genetic Counseling. Presented by Mary Norton and the UCSF Fetal Treatment Center.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Genetic
• Counseling
• fetal
• treatment
• UCSF
• Mary
• Norton

[sketchywilly]

Calling myself a genetics teacher is a little grandiose - I had one genetics section while in grad school. I'm no academic, but that was always my dream- the competition for tenured positions is a bit much for me, i don't have the stomach for it. In training for a clinical thing now But i certainly appreciate your warmth.

[ajdrewello]

@sketchywilly You were a teacher? Awesome mate :) Always a pleasure to meet an academic (unless you were kidding, at which point I feel foolish now lol)

[ajdrewello]

@sketchywilly I'm well aware of the amount of genes/alleles per chromosome (though the numbers aren't consistent of course - depends on which one we're talking about), as well as all the specifics you listed on homologous chromosomes, etc. But if you reread my comment, it was simply clarifying that each cell has 46 chromosomes, with the exception of sex cells/gametes which have 23. That's all :) If anything just take my comment as putting "per sex cell" after chromosome in your second sentence

[sketchywilly]

But, I was a terrible Genetics teacher . . . so I definately could have my facts twisted

[sketchywilly]

So we have 23 chromosome types (chrom 1, chrom 2, . . . chrom 22, Sex chromosomes (sex chrom could count as "chrom 23").  But we have 46 total chromosomes in most of out cells because we have 2 of each type.

[sketchywilly]

@ajdrewello Your comment and gentlemenly tone are cool - and I'm sure you know the facts. But "genes" describe a region along both hom. chromosomes that is considered the same region on each member of a chromosome pair. So if we have 500 genes a the strand of DNA that constitutes one of the pairs of chromosome 1, we still only have 500 genes total at chromosome 1, even though you have 2 chromosome 1s (and hence, two alleles of each gene-possibly 1000 diffrent alleles).

[ajdrewello]

@sketchywilly Actually we have 46 chromosomes in our cells, with the exception of sex cells in which each gamete has half of that (23 from each parent/sex cell). Just a minor clarification :]

[sketchywilly]

Each chomosome does not have thousands of genes. We have 23 chromosomes and about 23,000 genes. Some chromosomes have way fewer genes than others. Many chromosomes will have fewer than 1000 genes. Thats a meanless nitpick - but I rarely have the opportunity correct someone of Norton's stature - so I'm doing it! ;)

[GeckoGurl]

@HollyR0X: Deafness can much more complicated than the examples of cystic fibrosis and Tay-Sachs disease that the narrator presents. Deafness can be caused by many different things, some of them genetic. If you or your close family members have a history of deafness that was NOT caused by something like an injury, infection, or a history of noise exposure, you might want to speak to a genetic counselor who can help figure out if there's a genetic reason for the family history.

[HollyR0X]

can you know if you might have deaf babies by this test??