Genomic Medicine — A Primer

Abstract

H UMANS have known for millennia that he- redity affects health. 1 However, Mendel’s seminal contribution to the elucidation of the mechanisms by which heredity affects phenotype oc- curred less than 150 years ago, and Garrod began ap- plying this knowledge to human health only at the start of the past century. For most of the 20th cen- tury, many medical practitioners viewed genetics as an esoteric academic specialty; that view is now dan- gerously outdated.