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This interactive case discussion was created to emphasize the clinical relevance of population genetics, but is also a suitable resource for teaching the basic principles of population genetics while relating them to human genetic variation. Our understanding of human genetic variation has deepened over the past decade due to fine-scale genome mapping. Applying this knowledge to the evaluation of ancestry-based genetic testing strategies, such as direct-to-consumer genetic testing, is an important component of the practice of culturally-competent medicine and a relevant way to teach the foundations of population genetics, including Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium.

More than 400 scientists, bioethicists, and historians from 20 countries on 6 continents have gathered this week in Washington, DC, for the Human Gene Editing Summit. The attendees are a veritable who's who of genome editing: Jennifer Doudna of the University of California, Berkeley, Emmanuelle Charpentier of Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology, and Feng Zhang of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard-the three discoverers of the CRISPR-Cas9 system's utility in gene editing-plus dozens of other big names in genome science. Cal Tech's David Baltimore along with the heads of the four national societies hosting the meeting (US National Academy of Sciences, US National Academy of Medicine, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the U.K.'s Royal Society) provided opening remarks on Tuesday (December 1). And as I sat stage right in the NAS auditorium, I noticed the unmistakable rear profile of Harvard Medical School's George Church three rows in front of me. Church was scheduled to speak at a session later that afternoon about the application of CRISPR and other new precision gene editing techniques to the human germline-a hot-button topic since April, when a Chinese group published it had successfully modified the genomes of human embryos, and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) said it would not fund such research. Then in September, the U.S./U.K.-based Hinxton Group, an international consortium of scientists, policy experts, and bioethicists, said it supported the use of genetic editing in human embryos for limited applications in research and medicine.  

There are a significant number of genetics curriculum resources designed by different companies, curriculum development outlets, state curriculum designers and individual teachers. What resources are good? How do you know? As part of the Geneticist-Educator Network of Alliances (GENA) Project, a Curriculum Content Review Committee was formed to review readily available classroom resources about patterns of inheritance. Click here to see original evaluation form used by the committee and here to see the summary of the committee's review.

All adult mammals but humans are lactose intolerant. Follow human geneticist Spencer Wells, director of the Genographic Project of the National Geographic Society, as he tracks down the genetic and societal changes associated with the ability to digest lactose as adults-or lactose tolerance.

2 min video intro of risk factors/ complexity of disease -poor audio but good examples