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Human genome

Patchwork people

For years it was assumed that tiny differences in our genetic make-up gave us our individual traits. Now it seems that those characteristics are caused by rearrangements of large chunks of our DNA — variations that could be the key to understanding disease. Erika Check investigates.

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Author notes

  1. Erika Check is Nature's Washington biomedical correspondent.

    • Erika Check
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Check, E. Patchwork people. Nature 437, 1084–1086 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1038/4371084a

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