General Biology: Human Perspectives

Evaluating Your Own Risk for Inherited Disease

For this Assignment you will think about your individual health and health risks. What genetic diseases or problems might you face during your lifetime? Predisposition to heart disease, breast cancer, diabetes? You may consider your own health risks or those of other individuals such as a family member or friend. Then, in a paper of 750-1,000 words, address the following issues:

• What genetic diseases or problems were determined to be potential issues?

• Provide an introduction of the disease, outlining the major signs/symptoms of the disorder and the reason why this was selected as a genetic/inherited disease?

• Research the mode of inheritance for this disease/trait? Why? If you are not able to find a specific mode of inheritance, provide a hypothesis for the mode of inheritance. Explain your thinking here very thoroughly; this should take up about half of the length of the

Assignment.

• What other information would help you draw better conclusions about this disease?

• What problems did you encounter in gathering information about your family’s history or that of the person you interviewed?

• If you were to have a child, what could you tell him or her about his/her chances of inheriting the diseases based upon your research about the inheritability of the trait you are researching?

Finally, visit the KU library by clicking on the “Library” link on the KU Campus homepage. Select the option to perform an advanced search. Find two references that pertain to the disease/trait you selected. Record the methods that you used to discover these sources, and answer the following questions:

• Which search term(s) did you use?
• Did you use combinations of search terms?
• Which methods resulted in the most “hits” or results?
• Did you refine any of your searches? In other words, did you perform an initial search and then further narrow the results?