The recipe for life

What are ‘genes’?

• Our similarities and differences• We all know about the jeans we wear – they keep your legs warm and give you somewhere to put your iPod or your mobile phone. • But inside your body there’s a different kind of

‘genes’.

Cells, Chromosomes, DNA and GenesThe human body is made up of billions of individual CELLS

CHROMOSOMES contain the GENES. Genes are "strung" along the chromosomes, a bit like beads along a necklace. Genes are the instructions that tell the body how to develop and work properly

Every cell in the human body normally contains 23 PAIRS of chromosomes, making 46 chromosomes in total

Of the 23 pairs of chromosomes in each of these cells, one member of each pair is normally inherited from the father and the other member is normally inherited from the mother.

What is a rare chromosome disorder?

A rare chromosome disorder means that something happened to the chromosomes whilst a baby was developing inside his mum. It could mean that the baby has a piece of chromosome missing, added, or might have swapped places with another chromosome.

Chromosomes

Our similarities and differences

Our genes are 99.5% the same as each other

ChimpanzeeOur closest living ancestor

ManPrince Charles

What are your little differences?

Take a minute to think about some of the little differences that make you unique.

• Do you have freckles? • Do you have the same colour eyes as your friends?

All these things are decided by the tiny differences in our genes.

These two young people have different chromosome disorders

You may remember the earlier slide showing two cakes?

• The cakes are both the same and equally as delicious

• One had a piece removed

• It doesn't matter that the cakes look different, they are both equally good with or without the missing piece, or with slightly different ingredients

My story

www.rarechromo.org

Learning more about genes and chromosome disorders

This is the Unique mascot, he is called ‘Gene’

Thank you for listening