Geneticist: Watch who you marry

She named such disorders as muscular dystrophy and the heart-disease cardiomyopathy.

While such disorders can be passed on to children, Ramlachan said they can be identified by tests and then guidance given to couples on procreation.

She said the technology now exists to screen embryos for genetic abnormalities before a doctor performs implantation during an in vitro fertilisation (IVF) procedure.

Ramlachan mulled aloud the issue of possible “designer babies” whereby couples select to have babies with particular features such as high IQ and an absence of diseases.

“It will be available,” she said, but adding that such choices could be made against a backdrop of ethical and moral considerations.

Saying that people in the Caribbean need to start thinking about these issues, Ramlachan declared, “It is happening right now.” She said American actress Angelina Jollie’s bout with breast cancer had helped to raise the question of the mandatory screening for genetic diseases.

Another famous case as that of Layla Richards, a one-yearold British child suffering leukemia or cancer of the blood, who in 2015 was the first person to be cured of cancer by the use of genetics.

Ramlachan lamented a degree of public ignorance over genetics some of it caused by media hype.

She said genetics has helped humans to arrive at their present place as a species, as she cited its past use in helping to tame animals, grow food crops and fight disease.

Underling the power and mystique of genetics, she said that 60 percent of the human DNA sequence is the same as that of a banana.

DNA is a material found in every living cell that acts as a code to convey the characteristics of individuals from generation to generation.

Likewise, all that separates a human from a chimpanzee genetically is just 1.5 percent of their DNA sequences.