Political Correctness Hits Gene Nomenclature. (November 8, 2006)

    Many genes were initially discovered in the fruitfly Drosophila, and their names were then transferred to the versions later discovered in humans, and as Sue Povey, chair of the Human Genome Organisation's (HUGO) Gene Nomenclature Committee told Nature, "The fruitfly community is not necessarily anarchic but they do have wild ideas about gene names."

Drosophila-phylogeny-karyotypes

As a result genes named for example lunatic fringe, Indian hedgehog, headcase and mothers against decapentaplegia (MAD) cause at least some medical practitioners angst.

According to Mark Ludman, a medical geneticist at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada who has studied the skeletal-development defect caused by defects in the human version of lunatic fringe, such names may be offensive to some patients, therefore, he and several of his colleagues appealed to the HUGO committee to launch the consultation that led to the drawing up of the short-list. Povey says the resulting response was the largest for any online consultation run by the committee. So lunatic fringe has become LFNG and the list of revised nomenclature will be posted to the various gene databases that rely on the committee for up-to-date adjudications on the official naming of genes.

Sic transit gloria mundi.