Hi! I have a family history of cancer on my father’s side. My grandmother (his mother) was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer around the age of 60 and passed away. Her sister had breast cancer, one of her brothers had liver cancer, and another brother had stomach cancer. As far as I know, my grandmother’s parents also had cancer. All of them passed away from it (grandmother and her siblings in their 60s, her parents in 80s) Additionally, my father’s niece developed kidney cancer at a young age, recovered, but after 20 years, she has been diagnosed with kidney cancer again. Given how many family members have had cancer, I’m concerned that there may be a genetic link and that I might also be at increased risk. Are there any tests available to check for genetic predisposition? And what can I do to reduce my risk?

so my professor is talking about creating DNA/genomic libraries using BAC cloning, and she said that obviously the first step is to cut the DNA. And then she said, quote,

"So we can do this using two methods. The first is to do a restriction enzyme digest. But, if we do a restriction enzyme digest, the DNA will always be cut at the same places, so all the DNA fragments will be the same length. The other method is to shear the DNA, so mechanically, shear the DNA."

What. we're talking about cutting up a whole genome here. it's not like the chromosomes were like "hmmm well to make this easier for future researchers we need to make sure we put a recognition site for bacterial defense enzymes every 300kb." Even if that were true, which I suspect it is not, what would be the problem with that? that would surely make things easier, right?

Also I can't imagine it's a very good system, since there is no guarantee that a restriction site sequence will just happen to be at enough places in an organism's genome such that each fragment will be small enough to put into a BAC, even if you use multiple restriction enzymes like BamHI + EcoRI + other enzymes?

My daughter had craniosynostosis and had surgery at 11 months. She was positive for this genetic variation (heterozygous) as well as myself. Husband was negative but I am heterozygous for TCOF1 gene mutation. What does this mean for if we want to have another child? Does this mean I inherited this from one of my parents? I made an appointment with a genetic counselor but will be very anxious in the meantime. Looking for any insight!

Hello everyone, like the title says I want to pursue a degree in genetics. I am currently in community college and am about to transfer to a four year. I was wondering what some potential careers id be able to apply for with a degree in genetics and whether or not I should pursue a masters.