Learning outcomes

After studying this course, you should be able to:

• understand that genes are the units of inheritance for individual characteristics and also may contribute to susceptibility to certain diseases

• understand the number of chromosomes that make up the human genome and where they are located within the cell

• understand something of the immense scale of the human genome project

• understand how gametes are produced by the process of meiosis and how the full complement of 46 chromosomes is restored at fertilisation

• understand the role of the X and Y chromosomes in determining sex and how they are inherited.