{"id":2521,"date":"2016-06-02T17:03:34","date_gmt":"2016-06-02T17:03:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/biologyxwaymakerxmaster\/?post_type=chapter&p=2521"},"modified":"2017-01-26T23:08:37","modified_gmt":"2017-01-26T23:08:37","slug":"why-it-matters-dna-structure-and-replication","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-wmopen-biology1\/chapter\/why-it-matters-dna-structure-and-replication\/","title":{"raw":"Why It Matters: DNA Structure and Replication","rendered":"Why It Matters: DNA Structure and Replication"},"content":{"raw":"

Why relate DNA structure to the process of DNA replication?<\/h2>\r\nYou\u2019re one of a kind. It\u2019s not just your eyes, smile, and personality. Your health, risk for disease, and the ways you respond to medicines are also unique. Medicines that work well for some people may not help you at all. In fact, they might even cause problems. Wouldn\u2019t it be nice if treatments and preventive care could be designed just for you?\r\n\r\nThe careful matching of your biology to your medical care is known as personalized medicine. It\u2019s already being used by health care providers nationwide.\r\n\r\n\"anThe story of personalized medicine begins with the unique DNA\u00a0you inherited from your parents. DNA is responsible for all the physical traits that make you function as a human organism. It plays a vital role in life on this planet. DNA stores genetic information.\r\n\r\nGenes are stretches of DNA that serve as a sort of instruction manual telling your body how to make the proteins and perform the other tasks that your body needs. The same genes often differ slightly between people. Bases may be switched, missing, or added here and there. Most of these variations have no effect on your health. But some can create unusual proteins that might boost your risk for certain diseases. Some variants can affect how well a medicine works in your body. Or they might cause a medicine to have different side effects in you than in someone else.\r\n\r\nIt\u2019s becoming more common for doctors to test for gene variants before prescribing certain drugs. \u201cIf doctors know your genes, they can predict drug response and incorporate this information into the medical decisions they make,\u201d says Dr. Rochelle Long, a pharmacogenomics expert at NIH. \u201cBy screening to know who shouldn\u2019t get certain drugs, we can prevent life-threatening side effects,\u201d Long says.\r\n\r\nEven one of the oldest and most common drugs, aspirin, can have varying effects based on your genes. Millions of people take a daily aspirin to lower their risk for heart attack and stroke. Aspirin helps by preventing blood clots that could clog arteries. But aspirin doesn\u2019t reduce heart disease risk in everyone.\r\n
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Personalized Medicine in Practice<\/h3>\r\nHere are just a few treatments that benefit from personalization:\r\n