Trisomy 16

Uros Osmokrovic

Mr. Youell

10.06 2014

Science

Trisomy 16

First we ask ourselves what is trisomy. Trisomy is having three chromosomes in just one pair of chromosomes.  Three chromosomes in one pair can make a big difference in that babies life. Even if chromosomes are very small they can make huge difference in life. Scientists discovered a way to see does baby has chromosomal disorder before it is born. It is determined by medical procedure called amniocentesis. It is used for sex determination and chromosomal disorder determination. So why did trisomy 16 took my attention? It took my attention because most of babies with trisomy 16 leads to miscarriage. Trisomy 16 is responsible for 100 000 of miscarriages just in US. Even if trisomy 16 is not so common for living babies, there can be ones which are born with trisomy 16. Those babies can have full or mosaic trisomy 16. Full trisomy means that all the cells have trisomy, but mosaic means two or more population of cells in organism, so that means that there is not just cells with trisomy 16 there are normal cells too.

       Karyotype with trisomy 16 (picture 1)

Most of babies which are born with full trisomy 16 pass away in first month, but if they have mosaic trisomy 16 they may survive. All of the people who has mosaic trisomy 16 look normal. But only they know how is it to carry that weight of having trisomy. Symptoms on trisomy 16 can be very serious. Sometimes it leads to retardation. It may affect on development of the body, speech delays, kidney defect and reproductive disorders.

Even when doctor said that he will die, he lived.

(another survivor)

   One story took my attention. It is a story about Shayna Lange.  She was a baby girl who was born with mosaic trisomy 16. All doctors said that she won’t live long.  Her parents were worried till her 5^th year. Then they saw that she will live, but their worries are not over yet. When she  started going to school they were worried about education and memorizing. But she was excellent. She knew that she had trisomy but that only made her special. In her future education she had achieved  a lot. She finished high school with 3.2 GPA. She got scholarship for very good university. Now she is in that university and her life goes on.  (Picture 2)

Picture 2 Shayna Lange
From this story we can see that trisomy doesn’t mean always that human will be retarded or have some big mental disorders. We can just learn from this story that we should move on and try our best around any circumstances.