Judit Kiss, Veronika Suhajdáné Urbán, Hargita Hegyesi

Applied Biology

Human genetics

Genetics is the science dealing with inheritance. Why study human genetics? One reason is simply an interest in better understanding ourselves. As a branch of genetics, human genetics concerns itself with what most of us consider being the most interesting species on earth: Homo sapiens. But our interest in human genetics does not stop at the boundaries of the species, for what we learn about human genetic variation and its sources and transmission inevitably contribute to our understanding of genetics in general, just as the study of variation in other species informs our understanding of our own. A second reason for studying human genetics is its practical value for human welfare. One benefit of studying human genetic variation is the discovery and description of the genetic contribution to many human diseases. This is an increasingly powerful motivation in light of our growing understanding of the contribution that genes make to the development of diseases such as cancer, heart disease, and diabetes.