Researchers at Vitalité Health Network imagine a health-care system where patients are screened early for a disorder or disease they inherited from their parents, and mothers know exactly what health problems they could pass down to their children before ever getting pregnant.

But first, medical teams need to know which genetic variants are common in specific regions of New Brunswick. Luckily, we are built of microscopic indicators that researchers in Moncton are studying so they can figure that out.

"We have thousands of genes," Jean Mamelona, who runs the provincial program of medical genetics, said. "We are going, specifically, to analyze the genes to see if there is a defect or … a default on the gene."

Mamelona and his research team at the Dr. Georges-L.-Dumont Hospital are touring the province to map people's genes to build the first database of its kind for each of the seven health zones in the province.

You can read the details at: https://tinyurl.com/cprf3r3v