Monday, April 16, 2018

Genes Behind Deadly Heart Condition Identified

    Pulmonary arterial hypertension has a mortality rate of 50% within five years and in some cases doctors could not determine the exact cause of it. Its most often seen in people with other heart or lung conditions however it can affect others and in about 20% of cases no obvious cause could be found. However in recent study with over 1,000 PAH patients with no known cause has revealed 5 genes to be the cause of the disease, four of which were previously thought to not affect it at all. It was found that the people with these gene mutations fail to produce proteins necessary to maintain the structure and function of body tissues.

   This is another example of how genetics can be used to improve current treatments and develop new ones for diseases that were previously hard to treat or even diagnose as previous information and methods just did not provide what was necessary. Genetic findings like this and other Genetic technologies like CRISPR could ultimately lead to an overhaul of how medicine works. We are coming ever closer to being able to correct heredity diseases before they ever even show and perhaps even "improve the genes" of children still in development like in the movie Gattaca. However it is still too early to see if this could actually become a reality or how the overall populace would react to such technologies.

Article - http://www.bbc.com/news/health-43727026
Journal - https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-03672-4

1 comment:

  1. The future of medicine would be changed greatly if genes can be identified that cause heart failure. If genetics can identify the genes that potential cause harmful risk to our bodies then doctors would have the potential to limit their effects. Families can be warned if they are prone to certain types of disease with the new developments in molecular biology. It is amazing how technology has improved the way we look at our genes. Hopefully in the near future we will be able to limit the effects of deadly disease before they even happen.

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