Genetic Diseases

Dina LaVigna didn't have an athletic bone in her body, and in her last months disease had weakened her to the point she could no longer pick up her baby son. But Jeff Schmitt, who lives with their 5-year-old son in Camarillo, finds a triathlon in Ventura today a perfect tribute to a woman who cherished life, squeezing every drop from it she could until her death four years ago.

Theresa and Scott LaRue thought they had four healthy boys until their son Layne contracted Epstein-Barr virus in 1994 and died within two weeks. Trying to understand why Layne suffered such a drastic outcome from a viral infection that is normally much milder, physicians quickly discovered that two other sons--Garrett, then 3 1/2, and Blayke, 6 months--both have severely impaired immune systems. "It came out of nowhere for us," said Theresa LaRue.

Spurred by the landmark announcement Monday that the text of the human genetic code is nearly in hand, the Senate on Thursday voted to bar insurance companies from denying policies to people based on their genetic predisposition to disease. On a 58-40 vote, the Senate endorsed a proposal by Sen. James M. Jeffords (R-Vt.) that offered new but milder limits on insurers than most Democrats would like. Three Democrats, including Sen.

Now, the hard work begins. For all the celebration Monday over deciphering "The Book of Life"--the genetic information that controls most of what goes on in the human body--scientists know that they will need decades to fully comprehend the text. In the end, they promise a new era of medicine with new treatments for nearly every medical ailment--treatments that come from tweaking the genes that tell cells how to go about the work of daily life.

They had planned to trek across the world, a couple of newlyweds from Southern California and their infant daughter. The Greek isle of Mykonos was as good a starting place as any. They didn't need much money. He taught scuba diving; she was a manicurist. But by their daughter's first birthday, she hadn't said a word--not even baby talk. She hadn't taken a step, either. Her rattles held no interest. Six months later, nothing had changed. Actually, everything had changed.

They have learned how life unfolds in giant waves. With such force, Catherine Curry-Williams and Scott Williams were carried, first to joy when son Shane Alexander was born, then to a place deep and binding, a chasm without words, untouched by light. Shane was placed on a respirator immediately after birth on March 28, 1997. In the flurry to rescue him, there were many questions, which, over time, grew increasingly dire: What is spinal muscular atrophy (SMA)? Will he be in a wheelchair?

Floyd Nichols was 19 when his large intestine was surgically removed, an effort to stop a genetic disease that causes deadly colon cancer. It worked at first, but 16 years later, the disease was threatening his life again. Doctors had little more to offer. Worse to Nichols, one of his children inherited the disease, leaving him destined to either undergo his dad's radical intestine operation or get early colon cancer unless doctors found a solution.

A German American researcher who discovered how the body puts "addresses" on individual proteins so that they arrive at the correct location has been awarded the 1999 Nobel Prize for medicine or physiology. The discoveries have helped scientists unravel the causes of several genetic diseases, including cystic fibrosis and familial hypercholesterolemia, according to the Nobel Foundation citation. Dr.

A sleep syndrome that sends people early to bed and early to rise does not necessarily make them healthy, wealthy and wise. The disorder, traced to a single gene, can send sufferers to bed when everybody else is still going strong, researchers at the University of Utah have found.