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Brave toddler Alfie Clamp stuns doctors after being born with extra strand of DNA

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A BRITISH toddler has become the first person in the world to be born with an extra strand in his DNA, in a condition so rare doctors don't even know its name.

Alfie Clamp, from Warwickshire, northern England, has a seventh chromosome which has an extra arm.

Doctor discovered the extremely rare condition when Alfie, who was born blind and with severe disabilities, was just six weeks old.

A series of tests revealed the extra strand of DNA, which has left the medical world baffled.

His parents, Gemma and Richard, and doctors have no idea what his life expectancy will be or whether his condition will even improve.

The little boy has digestive problems, needs drugs to help his body absorb nutrients and suffers fits sparked by high temperatures and metabolic problems.


Source:
http://www.news.com.au/world/brave-...ra-strand-of-dna/story-e6frfkyi-1226037698646


All i have to say is... Wow =D
 
Well in regards to the young child my prayers are with the child and family. In regards to the doctors I pray they help this child and in the process glean any new and valuable information that they can for the advancement of modern medicine.
 
I guess it goes to show we've got about the right number of genetic strands as it is.
 
I hope they don't let him have a life and use him for scientific research. He will clearly never have any life of reasonable quality so society should exploit his human form to further knowledge to help the rest of humanity.
 
kaywholed said:
I hope they don't let him have a life and use him for scientific research. He will clearly never have any life of reasonable quality so society should exploit his human form to further knowledge to help the rest of humanity.
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Thats cold... :\
 
I don't see how this is different from an infant having an extra part of a chromosome, where a part of chromosome has been copied and then added on. They just haven't found which chromosome it got copied from because the mutation can be so complex. That certainly has happened.

They are trying to make it seem like some crazy occurrence, sensational journalism. This probably has a logical explanation and its not some freak of nature occurrence. Who ever wrote this probably doesn't know what they are talking about like what we often see when not so competent persons write science based articles.
 
On the face of it, this sounds just like a partial duplication. Extra strand of DNA, not even close, to have something additional to the + and - sense strands of the double helix would require a complete overhaul to our transcription/translation enzymes to make any use of.
 
I somehow don't think this article is telling the full story.

Saying an "extra DNA strand" is misleading, as readers will question whether it's a triploid genome, or a 24th chromosome. The article seems to hint at an extra chromosome, but it says something about a 7th chromosome. I have no idea what they mean by this.

Entire chromosomes don't just pop up out of nowhere, so it must have been a duplication event. The science behind this is pretty vague. It would be nice to get more info.
 
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Theyre just saying chromosome #7 has an extra arm on it; basically #7 is a bit longer.

I dont know why this is such a huge deal. People with down syndrome are born with extra chromosomes every day; people every day are born with mutations that give their chromosomes extra bits of data (albeit smaller extra pieces than this).

this article made it sound like they had furthered their DNA somehow.

Sadly it just seems like another case of a child being born deformed because their DNA had some extra stuff in it. Nothing really unique to be gleaned from this IMO.
 
this is certainly very interesting but it's not entirely clear to me why this makes him 'brave'
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The use of 'Brave' in this context is typical Tabloid newspaper speak in the UK. It's a kind of lazy journalism which descends into cliche whenever attempting to report on difficult emotional/human interest stories. PS - Such newspapers don't tend to produce very scientifically literate copy either.
I do think that the parents deserve praise for bringing the pregnancy to term and for the undoubted hardships they will endure whilebringing their son up. Especially seeing that there is a big financial squeeze taking place in the UK on the kinds of support and services they might be expecting to use.
This applies to parents facing simillar challenges in their offspring accross the whole range of physical and mental disabilities and illnesses.
My best wishes go out to them all.
As a UK tax payer, I would be happy if more of my tax was directed towards such ends, rather than towards, for example the updating of the UK Trident missile system, in this age of asymetrical warfare, or the ridiculous amounts spent on 'Consultants' by various govt departments and local councils.
I didn't mean to go on a rant, but there we go. . .
Peace - Pipp
 
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