Ricki Lewis

Flipping the X-ray showed Stefan Mundlos, MD, that his hunch was right – the patient’s arms were so odd and stiff because the elbows were actually knees.

The recent report from Dr. Mundlos’ group at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics, complete with a genetic explanation for the condition, flew under the radar of the press-release-driven science news aggregators. But I noticed it because I worked on this sort of thing in grad school – flies with legs growing out of their heads. Read More 

Body-Altering Mutations – In Children and Flies

I became a science writer, circa 1980, because I didn’t think flies with legs growing out of their heads – my PhD research – had much to do with human health. So when I spied “A Human Homeotic Transformation” way down on the Table of Contents in the May issue of the American Journal of Human Genetics, I was as riveted as a normal person would be getting a copy of People with a celebrity on the cover. Read More