Natural selection depends on heritable phenotypic variation. The most obvious source of phenotypic variation is genotypic variation. A new study, by Casanueva et al. in Science (2012) suggests that in addition to genotypic variation, variation in life history and...
As noted in my last post, the selective advantage of heterozygosity for the sickle allele at the beta-globin locus has been known since Allison’s report in 1954 (Lancet). Nevertheless, a plausible and detailed mechanism to account for the protective effect of an...
There is probably no more canonical example of the relevance of evolutionary genetics to clinical medicine than sickle cell disease. The relevance of the sickle allele, in heterozygous form, at the beta-globin locus for resistance to falciparum malaria was published...
As biomedical technology advances, the probability increases that evolution guided, constrained, or facilitated by scientists will be relevant to medicine. Of particular interest in this context is the increasing ability of investigators to engineer microbes to...
Among human pathogens, Streptococcus pneumoniae holds an especially prominent place in the history of biomedical investigation. Griffith (1928) described the transforming principle, a soluble substance released by dead, virulent pneumococci that could render...
