When I tell people I used to research about the genetics of myopia (or nearsightedness),  one of the questions they ask is whether they’ll pass it to their children.
And I tell them there are other factors, “interactions” we call them, between our genes and our environment that determine if certain genes will express and/or be passed to our children.
For example, mutations in the brca1 gene are highly associated with very high risks of breast cancer. A brca1 (breast cancer 1; on chromosome 7) is one of the genes in the body that suppresses tumors, by repairing damaged DNA. A mutation …read more