Leader
Happy families
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
 |
Introduction |
|---|
Barely a century has passed since Gregor Mendel provided the explanation for inheritance and a foundation for what we now understand as genetics. Looking back it is perhaps even harder to believe that it is only just over 40 years on from Crick and Watson, who with coworkers determined the structure of DNA and cracked the genetic code. Given this comparatively short period of time, progress has been dramatic in all areas of genetics, but particularly so in medicine where we are now in an exponential phase of development and the profession is gradually realising that it is caught up in the spiral of a new genetic revolution.
Until recently medical genetics was relatively circumscribed and mainly
concerned with rare monogenic conditions where the disease phenotype
was often obvious or dramatic and the mode of inheritance known.
Phenomenal recent progress in molecular biology has spawned molecular
genetics and a new strain
CiteULike 
Complore 
Connotea 
Del.icio.us 
Digg 
Reddit 
Technorati What's this?
- Full Text
- Submit a response
- Alert me when this article is cited
- Alert me when eLetters are posted
- Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
- Email this link to a friend
- Similar articles in this journal
- Similar articles in PubMed
- Add article to my folders
- Download to citation manager
- Request Permissions
Citing Articles
Google Scholar
PubMed
Topic Collections
Bookmark with
Register for free content
The full back archive is now available for all BMJ Journals. Institutional subscribers may access the entire archive as part of their subscription. Personal subscribers will also have access to all content when logged in. Non-subscribers who register have free access to all articles published before 2006 right back to volume 1 issue 1. Register here to access the free archive of all BMJ Journals.
Don't forget to sign up for content alerts so you keep up to date with all the articles as they are published.
