Similar to the meme… godamn did they fuck up by not holding geneticists to something close to… SOME standard naming.
Dated a maternal fetal medicine specialist. She’d come home being like “you ever have to explain to someone they have a mutation in the ‘sonic the hedgehog’ gene of their kid?!” If you’re familiar with what it does in fruit flies (when it was named), it’s fucking horrific in humans. Don’t google it.
It does make more sense if you consider that it is part of a line of Hedgehog genes, all of which make Fruit fly embryos look like hedgehogs (spiky) if they’re inactivated.
They didn’t just go “Let’s name a gene with bad outcomes if mutant in humans after a video game character! Yipee! Hooray!”, at least not for that.
Similar to the meme… godamn did they fuck up by not holding geneticists to something close to… SOME standard naming.
Dated a maternal fetal medicine specialist. She’d come home being like “you ever have to explain to someone they have a mutation in the ‘sonic the hedgehog’ gene of their kid?!” If you’re familiar with what it does in fruit flies (when it was named), it’s fucking horrific in humans. Don’t google it.
It does make more sense if you consider that it is part of a line of Hedgehog genes, all of which make Fruit fly embryos look like hedgehogs (spiky) if they’re inactivated.
They didn’t just go “Let’s name a gene with bad outcomes if mutant in humans after a video game character! Yipee! Hooray!”, at least not for that.
Though they did name SHH’s inhibitor Robotnikin.
Oh I get how it got that way, it’s just unfortunate what that lead to in a clinical setting.
Is that the R34 sonic mutation?
It might be? I forget exactly what it is in humans, I just remember the pictures I was shown. Midline disorders are nightmare fuel.
That’s a way cool name!