In particular, the team wants to know if babies born to mothers who smoked during pregnancy have more chromosome damage than babies born to nonsmokers. Tucker and team members Marilyn Ramsey and Dave Nelson will study blood samples taken from 300 mothers and from the fetal side of the placentas of their newborn babies. This research grows out of the team's earlier investigation of the theory that as people age, the amount of chromosome damage increases. For part of its work, the team analyzed umbilical cord blood from newborns delivered at a local hospital, and according to Tucker, it saw a significantly high amount of genetic damage in babies of smokers. This is a special case of second-hand tobacco exposure.
Unborn babies are at a very vulnerable stage of development.
They have no choice about being exposed to tobacco carcinogens. Potential for improving gene therapy reported In the October 1999 issue of Science, a Laboratory team reported that it has developed a possible method to make gene therapy more effective. The team also announced the discovery of a key step in fertility. Protamines bind too tightly to genes to be effective in protecting against enzymes that might destroy the genes. But we have learned that we can . . .