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Marcus Pembrey is one of a select band of scientists, a band of scientists who are daring to challenge an orthodoxy. They believe the lives of our parents, grandparents, and even our great grandparents can directly affect our well-being, despite never experiencing any of these things ourselves. To many, these ideas are regarded as scientific heresy.
You can not predict where important discoveries will be. The only thing that you can do is to follow your instinct.
Conventional biology has always believed that our genetic inheritance is set in stone at the moment of our conception. At that instant, we each receive a set of chromosomes from both our mother and father. Within these chromosomes are the genes, strips of coded DNA, the basic unit of inheritance. After conception, it was assumed that our genes are locked away inside every cell of the body, protected and untouched by the way you live. So what you do in your life may affect you, but your genes remain untainted, unchanged for future generations. In classic genetics, your parents and grandparents simply pass on their genes. The experiences they accumulate in a lifetime are never inherited, lost forever as the genes pass untouched through generation after generation.
The biology of inheritance was a reassuringly pure process, or so it seemed. In the early 80s, Marcus Pembrey headed the clinical genetics department at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children. He was frequently treating families with unusual genetic conditions.
We were constantly coming across families which didn't fit the rules, didn't fit any of the patterns that genetics were supposed to fit. So you think of chromosome abnormalities and you check the chromosomes and they are normal, so you then have to start imagining, as it were, you know, what might be underlying this and you were really driven to try and work it out because the families needed some help.
The more families he saw, the more the rules of inheritance appeared to break down--diseases and conditions that simply didn't fit with the textbook conventions. One condition in particular caught his eye, Angelman syndrome.
words and expressions
orthodoxy:The quality or state of being orthodox.
正统：正统的性质或状态
heresy:A controversial or unorthodox opinion or doctrine, as in politics, philosophy, or science.
异端邪说：有争议的或非正统的观点或学说，如政治、哲学或科学上的
Adherence to such controversial or unorthodox opinion.
离经叛道：坚持这种有争议的或非正统的观点
chromosome:[生物]染色体
abnormality:The condition of not being normal.
反常，变态：不正常的状态;畸形,异常性
Angelman Syndrome (AS) is neurological disorder in which severe learning difficulties are associated with a characteristic facial appearance and behaviour
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