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The Black Death was a pandemic, caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, that wreaked havoc on Europe from 1347 to 1351 A.D. During this period, King Edward III of England purchased a piece of land that he decided would be a cemetery for the victims. This burial ground, now containing over 700 people, is being used to investigate the influence that the Black Death had on human genomes. The ERAP2 Gene and the Black Death ERAP2 is a DNA sequence that is located on chromosome five. The gene codes for an enzyme that helps process foreign substances so they can be presented to the immune system.…

King Henry VIII of England reigned between the years 1509 and 1547 A.D. He produced three heirs and formed the Church of England during this time. However, he also caused extreme turmoil both within his family and within England. Between the execution of two of his six wives and his abandonment of multiple children, many scholars have wondered why his actions seemed so erratic and cruel. One of their prevailing theories is that the king suffered from a rare genetic condition called McLeod syndrome which is known to cause psychosis and irritability. The Life of King Henry VIII Henry was never meant to be king as…

With the recent release of Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story on Netflix, interest in the historical figures that inspired its characters has skyrocketed. However, many people are unaware of the genetic disorders that plagued the real-life Queen Charlotte’s family. King George III's Disease As he does in the series, the real King George suffered with his mental health. During particularly difficult episodes, he was known to write letters with 400-word sentences as well as talk so much that foam would come from his mouth. Though doctors at the time could not diagnose the king, modern-day physicians have attempted to explain the now-deceased monarch’s condition.…

Henrietta Lacks was born on August 1, 1920, in Roanoke, Virginia, United States. Originally named Loretta Pleasant, she was raised by her grandfather after her mother died during childbirth in 1924. In her grandfather's home, Henrietta grew up alongside her cousin David. The two would go on to marry in 1941 and have five children together before Henrietta's untimely death in 1951 at just 31 years old. Her Cancer Before her fifth pregnancy, Henrietta felt what she described as a "knot" inside of her. Just months after the birth of her son, she was referred to Johns Hopkins Hospital where…

Incest has long been known to increase the likelihood of health issues in offspring that result from the practice. The increased risk of health complications is due to the fact that many diseases and conditions require two recessive versions of a gene in order to be expressed in an individual. The more closely related two people are, the more likely they are to be carriers of the same disease. This increases the likelihood that each will pass on a recessive version of the same gene to their offspring. Therefore, if the offspring is shared between two related individuals, that child…

Hemophilia is an inherited disorder that prevents the proper clotting of an individual's blood. The condition, known to lead to fatal bleeding both spontaneously and after injury, is due to a lack of clotting factors. These clotting factors, which are proteins that act to stop bleeding, come in many forms. However, low levels of two types, factor VIII and factor IX, cause different types of hemophilia. These are type A and type B respectively (type B is less severe).  The X Chromosome Hemophilia is caused by a genetic mutation on either the gene that codes for factor VIII or the…

DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) is the molecule that stores our genetic information. It has a helical structure formed by two strands that each contain sequences of smaller molecules denoted by A's, T's, C's, and G's. This double-stranded helical structure was discovered in 1953 after years of experimentation by many individuals within the scientific community. The Foundation DNA was initially discovered by Friedrich Miescher who discovered the molecule in 1869. It was not until early in the 1940s that a team of scientists, led by Oswald Avery, posited that this mysterious molecule acted as our genetic material. Later in the decade, Erwin…

The famed author of On the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin, created what would serve as the foundation for the field of evolutionary biology. His main theory posited that both animals and humans had common ancestry and key differences were due to the pressures of natural selection. This idea, which we now know to be correct, shook Victorian society and permanently altered the biological sciences. However, he was not just the founder of a subfield of biology but the inspiration behind the theory of eugenics.  Half-Cousins  Darwin and the founder of eugenics, Sir Francis Galton, shared a grandfather, making the…