Meet Emily And Her Friends 

Hello Everyone, meet Emily! Emily is in 7th grade and has a younger sister, Jane, and a cat named Leo. She loves to read, bake, and spend time with her family.   For her to be able to do all these things, Emily’s body needs to work properly.  First, let's meet Dani, also known as DNA,  who lives inside Emily’s cells and has all the information for how Emily’s body should work. Dani has 23 clones of herself, also known as chromosome pairs, each of these clones has different information about different parts of her body. We will be focusing on the 4th clone, which is responsible for controlling Fred, a protein that controls Emily’s bone growth. Dani and Fred work together to make sure Emily is a growing, healthy child. 

Fred

Emily

Dani's 23 Clones (#4 in blue)

                 Fred Becomes Lazy   

Emily had always been a healthy, happy child until her parents began to notice something was wrong. Emily was a lot shorter than her friends and was not growing as much. Emily and her parents went to the doctor, who did some tests and found out that there was a problem with one of Dani’s clones. Dani’s 4th clone was not feeling well and therefore was not able to do her job of controlling Fred, who was in charge of Emily’s bone growth. Fred then became lazy and did not make sure that Emily’s bones were growing properly, which is why Emily was a lot shorter and smaller than her friends. This happens in the disorder known as achondroplasia (Ay-can- druh- play- zhuh).