Word: geneticists
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...search coordinated by Wexler's foundation, geneticist James Gusella of Massachusetts General Hospital discovered a particular piece of DNA, called a genetic marker, that seemed to be present in people suffering from Huntington's disease. His evidence suggested that the marker must be near the Huntington's disease gene on the same chromosome, but he needed a larger sample to confirm his findings. This was provided by Wexler, who had previously traveled to Venezuela to chart the family tree of a clan of some 5,000 people, all of them descendants of a woman who died of Huntington's $ disease...
Victor McKusick, a geneticist at Johns Hopkins University, was in the game much earlier. He has been cataloging genes since 1959, compiling findings in his regularly updated publication, Mendelian Inheritance in Man. In August 1987 he introduced an electronic version that scientists around the world can tap into by computer. At the end of December it contained information on all the 4,550 genes identified to date. Says McKusick: "That's an impressive figure, but we still have a long way to go." Several other libraries of genetic information are already functioning, among them GenBank at the Los Alamos National...
...Geneticist Ray White, formerly at M.I.T., has established a major center for genetic-linkage mapping at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. In 1980 he began a study of 50 large families, collecting their blood samples, extracting white blood cells, which he multiplies in cell cultures, then preserving them in freezers...
...Harvard geneticist Philip Leder cites many common diseases -- hyper-tension, allergies, diabetes, heart disease, mental illness and some (perhaps all) cancers -- that have a genetic component. Unlike Huntington's and Tay-Sachs diseases, which are caused by a single defective gene, many of these disorders have their roots in several errant genes and would require genetic therapy far more sophisticated than any now even being contemplated. Still, says Leder, "in the end, genetic mapping is going to have its greatest impact on these major diseases...
...geneticist today would even talk about creating a master race. Scientists are careful to point out that experiments in gene therapy will be aimed at curing hereditary disease and relieving human suffering, not at producing some sort of superman. But what if people want to use the technology to improve genes that are not defective but merely mediocre? Could genetic engineering become the cosmetic surgery of the next century? Will children who have not had their genes altered be discriminated against...