Human Genetics Project UT Southwestern Nutrition Academic Award Human Genetics Project Get more information about Dr. Jonathan Cohen and his research in genetics. The completion of the Human Genome Project opens the door to a better understanding of the basic causes of many human diseases. A great many diseases have a genetic basis. Often these disease are severe and appear early in life.
Examples are familial hypercholesterolemia and cystic fibrosis.
In a sense, these are pure genetic diseases. They do not require any environmental factors to elicit them. Although nutrition is not involved in the causation of m onogenic diseases, these diseases can have implications for nutrition. They reveal the effects of particular proteins or enzymes that also are influenced by nutritional factors. Thus, we have learned a great deal about human metabolism from monogenic diseases.