Eastern European Ancestry Research Articles

Nijmegen breakage syndrome

BACKGROUNDNijmegen breakage syndrome (NBS) is a rare autosomal recessive disorder. NBS-1, the gene defective in NBS, is located on chromosome 8q21 and has recently been cloned. The gene product, nibrin,...

Keystone in the Arch Ukraine: In the Emerging Security Environment of Central and Eastern Europe

At the beginning of the 'nineties, when new and unforeseen horizons were opening everywhere in central and eastern Europe, much was made in Canada of the fact that one Canadian in ten is of eastern European ancestry. The links between Canada and Ukraine were cited as a leading example of Canada's eastern connections, given the size of the Ukrainian community in Canada. Yet close to a decade later, the significance of these connections still fails to make more than a confused and unfocussed impression in Canada outside a small circle in government, the universities, and business. This is notwithstanding the emphatic support of the present Canadian government for an early and extensive expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), as a result of which Canadians, whether they entirely realize it or not, have now joined in extending the security guarantee in article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty to the borders of Ukraine, while Ukraine itself has sought to conclude with NATO arrangements that amount to 'everything short of article 5.'Considering its size, its strategic location, and its internal and external problems, there is a clear need for accessible analysis of Ukraine's situation and its significance for Western interests. This book by Sherman Garnett, Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, thus helps fill a notable gap. The keystone metaphor of the title is in itself an invitation to fresh thinking. With discussion of the expansion of NATO focussed largely on the Russian reaction, a more conventional view might have located the key to the security debate elsewhere. But Garnett asserts flatly that 'Ukraine is the keystone in the arch of the emerging security environment in Central and Eastern Europe.' Certainly little in the flood of coverage of the NATO expansion debate in the press would tend to such a conclusion.The author's review of Ukraine's record as an independent state is therefore all the more useful. Ukraine has barely existed in modern history as a sovereign country, and not at all within its present boundaries. It is less ethnically and culturally uniform than many Canadians might suppose -- less so than Poland, for example -- for all the historic richness and strength of the Ukrainian language and culture. At independence, Ukraine inherited internally a stricken economy and externally a set of troublesome problems with its neighbours, especially Russia. These included the question of Ukraine's nuclear future, both military and civil, the fate of the Crimea, the disposition of the Black Sea fleet, and the evolution of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). …

Catching up with Canavan's

Five years ago, Reuben began to lift the veil of obscurity shrouding Canavan's disease, a fatal brain disorder that afflicts mostly Jewish children of Eastern European ancestry He first pointed to a small molecule as the likely biochemical culprit. Now, Matalon, a physician and molecular biologist at the Research Institute of Miami Children's Hospital, and his co-workers have cloned the gene underlying the disease, unraveling its DNA code and discovering a mutation that occurs in 85 percent of all cases studied. The groups finding, reported in the October NATURE GENETICS, paves the way for devising prenatal tests and DNA screens for parents who fear they may carry the mutation. In addition, it holds tantalizing clues to related brain disorders and opens new avenues for understanding the biology of the brain's white matter. Matalon deserves a great deal of credit, says neurologist Hugo W Moser at the Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore, because he has taken the story of that dreadful and mysterious illness all the way from connecting it to a biochemical abnormality to the final point of identifying and cloning the gene.

The occurrence of HLA-BW46 in two caucasoid families of eastern european ancestry

The occurrence of HLA-BW46 in two caucasoid families of eastern european ancestry

Ethnic Differences in the Prevalence of Pulmonary Airflow Obstruction Among Grain Workers

World Health Organization data suggest that British males over 45 have a higher death rate from chronic bronchitis, emphysema, and asthma combined than do other Europeans. Although widely supposed that this is due to particularly unfavorable environmental factors in the British Isles, as well as a higher rate of tobacco consumption, ethnicity itself may be a significant factor in determining risk of obstructive airways disease. To test this hypothesis, we have analyzed the prevalence of airflow obstruction (100 x FEV1:FVC less than 68% and FEV1 less than 84 percent predicted) in Saskatchewan grain workers of British, German, and Eastern European ancestry using the Mantel-Haenszel odds ratio (OMH) and stepwise logistic regression. We found that the British grain workers had a significantly greater prevalence of airflow obstruction (OMH = 3.2; p less than 0.01) than the Eastern Europeans. We also found that ethnic origin made a significant contribution to the estimation of risk of airflow obstruction among grain workers independent of the effects of age and smoking.

Eastern and Southern European Immigrants: Expectations, Reality, and a New Agenda

Throughout the history of their settlement in America, Eastern and Southern European ancestry groups have varied dramatically. Yet there is a logic to combining all these groups into a single analytical category, based on the time of their arrival, their religious and cultural differences from other Americans, and their living memories of gaining freedom from serfdom and peonage. From 1924 to 1964, a national immigration policy of selection and restriction effectively excluded immigrants from these regions of Europe using flawed social scientific rationales that tagged Eastern and Southern Europeans as undesirable and inferior. By 1965, however, a fresh spirit of tolerance and consensus had come to prevail. The 1980 census data on ancestry populations and foreign-born persons from Eastern and Southern Europe sustain the notion that local variations should not be ignored. Finding the convergent issues of various ethnic populations remains on the American agenda of liberty and justice for all. Ancestry groups with recollections of the immigrant experience could become a pivotal force in resolving conflict during the next era of immigration.

Gilles de la Tourette syndrome

Clinical and genetic observations of Gilles de la Tourette syndrome were carried out on members of 14 families from the Minneapolis area. An unusual number of the families were of Jewish and other Eastern European ancestry, and in all but one of these families multiple members were affected. These observations parallel our earlier findings based on 21 families from the New York City area. Together with recent evidence indicating relative instability of a specific enzyme in some patients, these observations suggest that there is a genetically determined form of Gilles de la Tourette syndrome.

Caring for the Child with Familial Dysautonomia

flicts both boys and girls and appears to be found exclusively in Jewish children of Eastern European ancestry. It follows an autosomal rpcessive pattern of inheritance(l). The symptoms of familial dysautonomia, also known as the Riley-Day syndrome, reflect a diffuse, selective, sensory-motor defect combined with autonomic nervous system dysfunction. Although physical growth and development are slowed, mental retardation is not a characteristic of