Genetic analyses have been used more and more each year in the identification of the source of diseases. Specially, the article linked here shows how the genetic analysis of the transmission of the virus Hepatitis C was used to decipher where the disease spread from and how fast it spread. It is interesting to see just how complicated these analyses can get when diseases are involved. Unfortunately, with this type of research disease sometimes spreads faster than the scientists can research it. This was often the case when the scientists in Spain were using these analyses on the Hepatitis C virus. Another complication with these methods is the high rate of mutation amongst the Hepatitis c virus. As the article reads, "another consequence of the high viral mutation rate is that there are millions of variants of HCV kicking around in each infected person’s liver, and only a very small fraction of those are present in any given blood sample, making matches between viral sequences in the source and those suspected to have been infected by that source even harder to pin down." All of these components make it exciting to see the world of genetics spreading in all areas of life, and hopefully eventually helping solve the mysteries of diseases.
http://www.geneplanet.com/personal-genetic-analysis.html
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