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About Darren Raffety
Expertise
I can answer questions relating to molecular genetics, specifically the roles that genes play in both health and disease in mammalian cells. I am also able to answer with relation to experimental organisms (e.g. S. pombe and S. cerevisiae) that are widely used in the biochemistry of genetics. I am knowledgable in the history of genetics ranging from the start (widely accepted to be Mendel, although his work was ignored for many years after his death). I can't answer questions directly relating to an individuals disorder only to give a general overview of widely accepted and experimentally proven concepts and theories. It is also impossible to determine the characteristics of an unborn child based on the phenotypes of the parents.

Experience
4 years educational experience at 2 UK Universities

Organizations
Instituate of Biomedical Sciences University of Sussex

Education/Credentials
BSc (Hons) Biomedical Sciences (University of Brighton) MSc Genetic Manipulation and Molecular Cell Biology (University of Sussex)

You are here: Experts > Science > Genetics > Genetics > Question on clif chins

Genetics - Question on clif chins

Expert: Darren Raffety - 11/3/2009

Question
My boyfriend and I had a baby with a clif chin.He said it is not possible that my son is his because neither me or him has a clif chin.Could you please let me know what percent of children. That have a clif chins.When neither parents have the clif chin.Thank you

Answer
Hi Teri,

Thank for your question!

To obtain a cleft chin, there are two genes required. One of those genes codes for the proteins that are needed to make the indentation. Anyone without a cleft chin can still have the gene to code for it. What these people don't have is a second, as yet unknown gene, that allows the cells to actually read the gene.
To break it down a little, the cell needs to know where to start so imagine that someone asks you to say the alphabet. You start at A and end at Z. You wouldn't really start in the middle and go through it that way. What this second reading gene does is tells the cell to start reading at the right point (A) in order to make sense of the gene.

In this particular case, you may have given the cleft chin gene to your baby. The Dad would then have given the reading gene to your baby. Or the other way round. If means that whilst you and the Dad do not have cleft chins, your both giving the necessary genes in order for the baby to develop one.

Genetics are actually a lot more complicated than that which is taught and so these sort if miss understandings happen. But it happens all the time!

Kind Regards,

Darren

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