Inherited disorders

Question 1

What is cystic fibrosis ?

Answer 1

its a genetic disorder of the cell membranes, resulting in the body producing a thick sticky mucus in the air passages and in the pancreas

2) Allele causing cystic fibrosis is recessive, f , carried by one person in 25

3) One copy of allele won’t have disorder, Ff = called carrier

4) Both parents carrier, 1/4 chance child has the disorder

Question 2

What is polydactyly ?

Answer 2

Genetic disorder when a baby is born with extra finger or toes -> not life threatening

2) Caused by dominant allele, disorder can be inherited if one parent carries the defective allele

3) Parent will also have the disorder as its a dominant allele

4) 50% chance of child having disorder if one parent has one D allele

Question 3

During IVF what occurs and what is possible to do??

Answer 3

embryos are fertilised in a lab and inserted into the mothers womb

Before implantation, its possible to remove a cell from each embryo and analyse its genes

Many genetic disorders can be detected in this way such as cystic fibrosis

Its also possible to get DNA from an embryo in the womb and test that for disorders

Embryos produced by IVF = bad alleles destroyed
For embryos in the womb =screening can lead to termination of pregnancy

Question 4

For Embryonic screening

Answer 4

• help stop people suffering
• Treating the disorder cost the GOV a lot of money
• There are laws to stop it going too far for example, parents cannot pick sex of their baby

Question 5

Against Embryonic screening

Answer 5

• implies people with genetic disorder are ‘ undesirable ‘ and can increase prejudice
• They may come a point everyone wants to screen their embryos to pick most desirable one
• screening is expensive