Monday, April 21, 2014

A Case of Identical twins - not really identical?

According to the LA Times, a pair of identical twins fetuses were discovered to be not exactly identical. While they had the same exact DNA, for some reason, unknown to researchers, one of the twins had an extra chromosome (which would cause down syndrome) and the other one did not. Since identical twins are supposed to have the same exact 3 billion base pairs of DNA, it has become a mystery to scientist on how only one of the twins was affected. Due to this discovery being while the twins were still in the womb, the decision was made for them to be aborted. Although a tragic situation, this opens up the research field for scientists to try and understand how something like that could happen. 


While I can't even imagine what this family must have went through and what they had to consider, I am deeply saddened that they made the decision to abort the pregnancy. It is a lot of work to raise twins, let alone to raise twins with one of them having a mental illness. I can understand and respect the fact that for that couple they felt that it would be too much. As far as the scientific side of this situation, I am intrigued that something like this could even happen. I'm sure that scientists will be looking into this and try to figure out how this could even be possible. The field of genetics will keep expanding with new situations like these constantly being discovered.

Link to the article: http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-twins-down-syndrome-genetics-20140416,0,6762726.story

Link to related article: http://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/condition/down-syndrome




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4 comments:

  1. AnonymousApril 21, 2014 at 11:42 AM

    This article is very interesting. I never knew this was even possible, because when you think of identical twins you think IDENTICAL TWINS. I am very saddened however about the family deciding to abort both twins. It must have been a very tough decision.

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  2. UnknownApril 21, 2014 at 2:37 PM

    This article opens up a whole world of possibilities since it was once thought that identical twins were exactly identical. This discovery will spark new research to be performed on identical twins to figure out exactly how one twin could end up with an extra chromosome, while the other one did not. Twin research has always been very popular and I am interested to see what the future holds for new twin theories.

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  3. AnonymousMay 2, 2014 at 1:57 PM

    I think that this article definitely raises more investigative questions on how the DNA mechanisms work among twin children in the womb. I also think that preventative research of diseases could potentially be done to see if replacing good genes from one identical twin can help save the twin that may have the illness or disease gene written in their DNA.

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  4. AnonymousMay 2, 2014 at 8:42 PM

    This is a head scratching article because I can't even grasp how twins who have identical DNA still can not be identical. This should be researched intensely to see why this phenomenon occurs and how it can be prevented because those parents must be going through a rough time.

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