People outside the United Kingdom may not be familiar with Chris Woodhead, but he was the Chief Inspector of Schools in the UK who reported in 195 that some 15,000 UK teachers were incompetent and should be replaced.

Five years after, Woodhead resigned from his position after he had several altercations with the then Secretary of Education. Almost ten years later, Woodhead is stirring up new controversies in The Guardian interview and in his book “The Desolations of Learning”.

Do genes dictate success in school?

Woodland says that children have differing abilities that the current British school system do not take into account when putting children together in classes. So what happens? Smarter children do worse after 4-5 years because these children succumb to the peer pressure to be less smart.

Instead, Woodland suggests that classes be segregated based on abilities, so that smarter students can be put together in one class and they have a chance to learn better. Less-smart children should be given “practical education courses” (after the basics) that will help them succeed in society.

Mr. Woodland also adds that children have better genes if the child’s parents belong to the middle class, or are either teachers, academics, or lawyers. Now of course, he did not give evidence about his opinion, so I’m not sure if there was a published study supporting his view. It’s a long shot, you know. What really factors in success in school - genes, socio-economic status, “selection”,  nurture, study habits? And what combination is better for optimum chance at succeeding in education?

So what do you think? Do middle-class children really have better genes and do better in life? If you’ve read studies about this I would love to know about it!

Image: Flickr

The day after Thanksgiving is the most important holiday before Christmas. It’s our signal to start shopping for holiday gifts!

But what do you give someone who is crazy about genetics?

Well, my friend, you came to the right store, if you need a gift for any of the following reasons:

• The holidays! What better way to say Merry XX-Mas! (or Merry XY-Mas!)
• Birthdays and anniversaries, graduate fellowships, employment, promotions, new discoveries, grant approval, postdoctoral work and all the major accomplishments in life!
• Something for your boss; your boss’ boss; your professor; your department head and all the important people who can sign your papers!
• Something for your laboratory head, technicians, the statisticians and programmers, and everyone who makes your life easier.
• Something for your classroom, art walls, bare walls, bathroom walls? and other walls you want jazzed up!
• and don’t forget YOU. You deserve to have the best.

Genetics and Health Showroom has everything most of what you want (shameless promotion) for gift ideas of all occasion.

For starters, your own DNA in Portrait. Yup, submit a cheek swab and DNA 11 will send you a printed canvas of your genetic material. Check out a sampling from the Gift Guide.

Happy Black Friday!

An interesting article on the suicidal brain came out of Biological Psychiatry this week - A gene for neurotransmitter reception is shut down in the suicidal brain.

Scientists found chemical changes relating to regulation of cell development were happening in the brains of people with major depressive disorder who committed suicide. The gene controlling neurotransmitter reception plays a role in regulating behavior. It’s very interesting. Without proper regulation of behavior, then I assume the behavior would be erratic and contribute to suicidal tendencies.

This is another example of epigenetics at work. Without even changing the DNA structure, environment can cause heritable changes in gene function. In this case, depression triggers the brain

via medical news today

Being diagnosed with a genetic disease, and one that has no cure or treatment, is probably one of most heart-wrenching news ever. To be told that one has Alzheimer’s disease for example, or one is a very high risk or diagnosis of some incurable form of cancer, what does one do? How does one handle it?

I read about Christina Applegate’s diagnosis of breast cancer, and her decision to have double mastectomy because of the high risk she carries. She kept it hidden from everyone but the closest family members and her make-up artist. I read of it weeks after her second surgery, and I have to admire her for what she did. She claims to be 100% cancer free after the surgery, and that is cause for a public applaud.

Well, new findings at the National Institutes of Health reveal that those who discuss their condition with friends and family, and caregivers who feel some measure of control, adapt best. Of course, it is a different ballgame with celebs and high profile names because they want more privacy. But for us who might be going through a diagnosis or know of our risk for certain diseases, genetic counselors will play a huge part in helping you and your families cope and understand the condition. I personally think that the first question a sincere family member asks is  - what can I do to help? 

It’s the Sunday edition of Genetics and Health so let’s sum up some of the genetic research and news that came up this week.

A grand rounds lecture "Molecular Genetics of Colorectal Cancer" by Vincent Yang presents an overview on the role of genes in colorectal carcinoma, and shares initial findings on a cell cycle modulator gene.

The NY Times article, "Man Who Helped Set the Stage for Nobel-Winning Work Has Left Science" profiles Dr. Douglas C. Prasher, the scientist who provided the essential piece of evidence that helped the work of Nobel Price Chemistry winners Roger Y. Tsien and Martin Chalfie. You’ll be surprised to find out Dr. Prasher’s latest employment.

A "pleasure" gene is behind an obese person’s insatiable desire to eat more.

The Personal Genome Project is open for business and it’s looking for volunteers agree to make public their medical history AND DNA sequence. PGP is a nonprofit, volunteer database project by Harvard University.

When I was young my mother would ask me to help her pollinate some of her prized orchids. She would name them ‘var X var’ and the new plant would be slightly different than the one it came from. Little did I know that I was being introduced to genetics.

When I got into high school Biology and fell in love with the Punnett square, the rest was history. I pursued Mendel and trained with the leading scientist /adviser in plant breeding in the Philippines, the same professor who trained my mother in college. It was exciting to study the chromosomes of ancient corn species, and later to find the genes that let rice adapt to flood-prone fields. But it was my love for medicine that brought me away from plants and my jade mountain.

I went 3000 miles away to the east coast, USA to study humans, their genes and diseases, and I concentrated on asthma and allergies, the immune diseases that plague my family. For some reason, my work was good enough to land me a job under one of the best minds in statistical genetics, where I worked on the genetics of myopia for five years. And now here I am at your service, blogging for genetics and health.

In my lifetime (and I’m not that old yet, mind you) there were a plenty of big shoes to fill. With Genetics and Health, two of these have to be Dr. Hsien-hsien Lei and Elaine Warburton. Hsien put this blog on Google and she understands genetics like she breathes it. Really she does. Elaine’s expertise and the vast community in genetics brought this blog into wider focus of health and medicine.

Two big shoes to fill. I hope someday they fit me.

If you’re here and visiting, I would love to hear from you. If you’re a student, I hope I can help with school. If you’re a current reader, welcome from the new writer. I hope you stay and exchange ideas with the rest of us. Feel free to share links, posts and news back and forth. There is so much to discover about “our genes, our lives” and the field is growing like never before, don’t you think?

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It’s not exactly the secret of immortality, but scientists have discovered the nearest thing to the secret of a long life. It’s in your genes.

Or rather, it’s in the gene called FOXO3A or the so-called “long life gene”, which The Hawaii Lifespan Study found was associated with better health and a longer life. The team led by Drs. Bradley Wilcox followed 8,000 Japanese-American men who had regular health exams since the 1960s, where they found that men who lived an average 98 years - the longevity group - had similarities in their genotypes.

Men who carry one copy of the nucleotide G at a certain location in the FOXO3A gene doubled their odds of living longer, while men who had two G copies almost tripled their odds of living beyond a century and were healthier at older ages. The men were also shown to have less heart disease, cancer and stroke, than a younger average-lived comparison group.

Previous studies of other “longevity-associated” genes in humans have been disappointing, so results from this study are very interesting. The next step now is to extend the study to other populations.

The study appeared in the September 16 issue of PNAS.

It’s Monday, and there’s plenty of catching up to do around the world of genetics. This week month -

The Broad Institute received an astonishing $400 million endowment from the donors that bear its name. The Institute helped mapped the full complement of the human genes. This record-setting gift will fund genomics research.

A melanoma cell line mistakenly identified as breast cancer cell line was used in more than 650 published breast cancer studies. The mistake happened 25 years ago, and could have implications for the cancer studies the cell line was used in.

The NIH awarded $138M to 47 scientists for “deep innovation” in genomics proteomics and other molecular biology research efforts.

Your genes can map your ancestry to your home country.

Joseph Vanden Plas takes a hard look at the hype of stem cell research.

Who owns the genetic data for the avian influenza virus? WHO, Indonesia and other developing nations want a say. Pharmaceuticals use the viral data for vaccine research, so whoever owns the intellectual property right gets a share of the cash.

image: sxc

(Image credit: medicineworld.org) 

This week b5 media’s Health and Wellness channel is focusing on celebrities health.  Our focus is not on ‘tittle tattle’  and hot gossip about Angelina, Brad or ’Tomkat’ but rather a serious look at health issues that high profile individuals share with all of us. 

In the genetics world, our ‘celebrities’ are the likes of Craig Venter and James Watson - pioneering geneticists but basking in the eye of the media.

The race to sequence genomes has resulted in some major PR, particularly for Craig and James. 454 is sequencing James Watson’s genome and Craig has announced some of his results in PLoS.  TV star Larry King, cosmologist Stephen Hawking, Google co-founder Larry Page, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and junk bond trader Michael Milken have all paid a vast sum of money to have their genomes sequenced.

However, this is causing a degree of discomfort within the scientific community.  They are worried that only the rich will benefit and it’s sending out the wrong messages to the public.

I have a different perspective.  Research has to start somewhere.  The very rich have always been the first to buy pioneering technology whether it’s a car, the latest computer or mobile phone.  Their money will assist  in further driving down the cost of the technology to such a price that will be affordable to us mere mortals.

Elaine Warburton  www.geneticsandhealth.com

Genetic material has been analyzed from members of a large Swiss family, the majority of whom suffered from auto-somal dominant juvenile cataract.  From the DNA, researchers at ETH Zurich and the University Zurich identified the chromosomal location and exact molecular defect in the coding region of the gene responsible for the type of childhood cataract. Until now, no human disease could be associated with this gene.

The corresponding protein arising from the gene belongs to a family of monocarboxylate transporters which move small molecules across cell membranes. Surprisingly, this genetic defect may also lead to the condition of renal glucosuria, a kidney defect which results in elevated levels of glucose in the urine, but not in blood. The researchers suspect that this genetic defect interferes with homeostasis in the lens as well as in the kidney.

The search for the molecule that is carried by this new transporter across the membrane has now begun.

Since the known environmental risk factors for age-related cataract point to physiological and oxidative damages accumulating over time within the lens, the researchers assume that defects in this newly discovered transporter may also be a cause of age-related cataract. Age-related cataract patients are now being screened to find mutations in this gene.

Understanding the exact function of this transporter may open new venues for non-surgical treatment of cataract.

Elaine Warburton  www.geneticsandhealth.com