A scientist whose work has revolutionized the classical laws of genetics has been awarded the 1998 March of Dimes Prize in Developmental Biology, it was announced today.
Every individual inherits two copies of most genes, one from each parent.
It was assumed for over 100 years that two healthy copies of a gene behave identically. Dr. Solter discovered an exception to this theory in the 1980s called gene imprinting. Both the inactive and the active copies of the gene are crucial to the offspring's normal development. Although no one yet knows exactly how gene imprinting occurs, the recognition of this phenomenon has profoundly changed our view of disease inheritance. It is now believed that some birth defects and types of cancer result from imprinting errors rather than from the classical patterns of genetic dominance or recessiveness.