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The Huge Gene Project:
Did we mention that genes are found in chromosomes? (Those are them little trait carriers in your cells that you get from yer mommy and daddy.) Well, while everyone's got different genes, they're all arranged in pretty much the same way. So you can actually know what genes are on which chromosome, and even where those genes are in relation to each other! Back in 1913 two fruit fly enthusiasts (and scientists) noticed that different traits showed linked inheritance patterns.
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Dr. Thomas Hunt Morgan and his student Dr. Alfred Sturtevant bred masses of fruit flies and started mapping the relationships between traits. They figured out these maps would most likely correspond to where the
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particular genes were physically located on the chomosome. And they were most correct!
Nowadays, gene mappers are pushing beyond the lair of the fruit fly. A rockin' project has begun, to map all the genes in the human cell. It's called the Human Genome Project. |
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A genome is the entire arrangement of the genes for a certain species. We human beings have 23 pairs of chromosomes and about 200,000 genes altogether. So yeah, it's quite a big project. Three billion dollars big!
There is, however, a point to knowing where the decision for each tiny trait is made. We can, for example, find out which genes link to certain hereditary diseases and find cures. Nice!
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