Inherited Disorders

• Inherited disorders are a group of conditions that can be passed on in certain alleles and can be inherited from a person's parents.
• Polydactyly is a condition in which a baby is born with extra fingers or toes and is caused by a dominant allele.
• Cystic fibrosis is a disorder of the cell membranes that results in lots of thick, sticky mucus being released in different parts of the body, particularly the airways of the lungs and the pancreas.
• The recessive allele that can cause cystic fibrosis is represented by the letter f.
• One in 25 people are heterozygous carriers of cystic fibrosis, meaning they have one copy of the cystic fibrosis allele.
• Embryo screening is a process where the genes of an embryo can be checked for genetic disorders such as polydactyly or cystic fibrosis.
• The advantages of embryonic screening are that it can help reduce the overall amount of suffering and save lots of money as treating genetic disorders is really expensive.
• One of the concerns of embryonic screening is that it can imply that people with genetic problems are less desirable than healthy individuals, which could increase prejudice.
• Another concern of embryonic screening is that it could lead to people screening for other traits such as eye color, physique, or in the UK.