Genetic Therapy

What are Cells, DNA, Genes and Chromosomes? In the human body there are 50 trillion cells. Cells structures the human body, takes in nutrients and covert it into energy. Each cell has a set of instructions that create a person identity and it is encoded into humans Deoxyribonucleic (DNA). Genes are a long strand of DNA. The long strands of DNA are organized into piece called chromosomes. Every human have 23 pairs of chromosomes. Chromosomes are organized to short segment of DNA called genes. A gene consist a combination of four different nucleotides. “The four nucleotides are A (adenine), C (cytosine), G (Guanine), and T (thymine).” The gene combination ACGT give humans different characteristics. (Nordqvist, 2008) Genes are passed from the parents to offspring. A sperm and egg from both parents’ meet and fertilize the egg. A sperm cell pairs up with the other half of chromosomes. Half chromosomes are from the mother and the other half is from the father and creates 23 chromosomes together. Each chromosome have different genes and when it time the most dominant genes will appear. “Each of your cells contains two sets of chromosomes - one set came from your mother while the other came from your father - male sperm and the female egg carry a single set of 23 chromosomes each - 22 autosomes and an X or Y sex chromosome. If you are female you inherited an X chromosome from each parent - if you are male you inherited an X chromosome from your mother and a Y from your father.” (Nordqvist, 2008)

Genes are essential to the function of the human body. They determine how the body functions and how it responds to various stimuli. The latter are internal and external factors. Internal factors include genetic coding and base pairing, and external factors are ones based on the environment. Genes account for the differences in the biological differences when comparing humans. This is what makes each and every one of us unique. However, this variance in traits and

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