​ Being transgender has to do with how a person feels about their gender, not how many X's or Y's they have. At birth, doctors look at the genitals of our bodies to see if we are a boy or a girl, and most of the time, when someone physically looks like a boy, they also feel like they are a boy in their brains. People whose feelings about their gend...

It is normal for hair color to change, as people age. But white hair can appear at almost any time in life. Even teenagers and people in their 20s may notice strands of white hair. The human body has millions of hair follicles or small sacs lining the skin. The follicles generate hair and color or pigment cells that contain melanin. Over time, hair...

Most skin cancers are caused by too much exposure to ultraviolet (UV) rays. UV rays come from the sun, tanning beds, and sunlamps. UV rays can damage skin cells. [1] To lower your risk of getting skin cancer, you can protect your skin from UV rays from the sun and from artificial sources like tanning beds and sunlamps. Protection from UV rays is im...

Vaccines contain the same germs that cause disease. (For example, measles vaccine contains measles virus, and Hib vaccine contains Hib bacteria.) But they have been either killed or weakened to the point that they don't make you sick. Some vaccines contain only a part of the disease germ. A vaccine stimulates your immune system to produce antibodie...

​ Genome editing (also called gene editing) is a group of technologies that give scientists the ability to change an organism's DNA. These technologies allow genetic material to be added, removed, or altered at particular locations in the genome. Several approaches to genome editing have been developed. A recent one is known as CRISPR-Cas9, which i...

Gene therapy is a cancer treatment that is still in the early stages of research. [1] Genes are coded messages that tell cells how to make proteins. Proteins are the molecules that control the way cells behave. Our genes decide what we look like and how our body works. We have many thousands of separate genes. Genes are made of DNA and they are in ...

In this period dominated by loud scientific research, where scientists scanned the human genome to better understand the hidden secrets of our body, we tend to explain everything in a deterministic and rational way. We apply this approach to the objects who make this world, and to ourselves, although we're conscious that we're often not very ration...

US National Cancer Institute,  BRCA1 and BRCA2: Cancer Risk and Genetic Testing, April 1, 2015  BRCA1 and BRCA2 are human genes that produce tumor suppressor proteins. These proteins help repair damaged DNA and, therefore, play a role in ensuring the stability of the cell's genetic material. When either of these genes is mutated...

HGP  The Human Genome Project (HGP) was one of the great feats of exploration in history - an inward voyage of discovery rather than an outward exploration of the planet or the cosmos; an international research effort to sequence and map all of the genes - together known as the genome - of members of our species, Homo sapiens. Completed in Apr...

Genetics Home Reference  Genome editing (also called gene editing) is a group of technologies that give scientists the ability to change an organism's DNA. These technologies allow genetic material to be added, removed, or altered at particular locations in the genome. Several approaches to genome editing have been developed. A recent one is k...