What exactly is a gene? What's gene therapy? Should we be experimenting with genes? As genes are mentioned more and more often in the news, you may have asked yourself these questions. Up until now, you'd have to be pretty studious to find the answers. But there's an entertaining new online exhibit from the federal government that may be of interest to you and even catch the attention of your children.

Revolution in Progress
The new exhibit, sponsored by the National Institutes of Health, is designed to answer your questions about genetics in a way that you and even children can understand (it includes cartoons!). The exhibit is titled Revolution in Progress: Human Genetics and Medical Research, and you can view it at www.history.nih.gov/exhibits/genetics.

Revolution in Progress focuses primarily on how genetic research will help in the prevention and treatment of disease, but it will also help you understand what DNA, genes, and chromosomes do in our bodies and tell you all about the Human Genome Project that's mapping and decoding our genes.

Genetic Research: A New Frontier
Genetics research is producing discoveries that will affect your life in the future, and you'll need to deal with the ethical questions regarding testing, medical insurance, job discrimination, and gene therapy. Here are just a few things that gene research may make possible:

• Tests for Huntington's Disease, a genetic disease that runs in families but doesn't appear until adulthood
• Tests for unborn children to detect potential diseases
• Tests for the presence of a breast cancer mutation

	Ethical Questions of Gene Research Genetic research raises ethical and moral questions that the public, researchers, and policy-makers will need to consider. Here's an example of an ethical dilemma involving discrimination. It brings up the question that if a genetic disease is known to be common in a group of people, could this information be used to justify job or insurance discrimination? As you read this, think about your reaction. You have just received the results of a genetic test for the presence of a breast cancer mutation and discovered that you have the mutation. Now you fear the possibility of disease and discrimination. Who should have this information? Your family, your insurance company, your employer? Should this potential genetic disease be considered a pre-existing condition? Will your insurance company drop you? Will your employer fire you? Will the possibility of this disease motivate you to take better care of yourself? How can your environment affect your susceptibility to disease? These are interesting questions to ponder as we move into a new era of genetic testing.