Accessing your essays:

1. Log in to the ASHG portal through the button on the left side of the screen labeled "Login with ASHG". Your username is the email address associated with your membership

2. Select "My Reviewing Assignments" from the table on the left side of the screen

3. Please read through each essay assigned to you and score them based on the provided rubric - you can find the rubric attached to each of your assigned essays

Round 3 judging ends on Friday, April 15 at 11:59 pm U.S. Eastern Time.

If you have any questions, please contact dnaday@ashg.org. 

Essay Question:

The “Father of Genetics,” Gregor Mendel, was born 200 years ago in northern Moravia (now Czechia).  His experiments with pea plants led to observations and conclusions that became fundamental principles of genetic inheritance. These principles include: 1) Each organism has two versions (or alleles) of each gene; 2) One allele is inherited from the mother, and one allele is inherited from the father; 3) Alleles can be dominant or recessive; 4) Genes for different traits are inherited independently from each other. Because of Mendel’s contributions, traits and disorders that are caused by variation in one gene (For Example, Huntington’s disease, Cystic fibrosis) are called Mendelian traits or disorders. There are also complex traits and disorders (For Example, diabetes, hypertension) that are caused by variation in many genes and, often, environmental factors.

1. How do Mendel’s discoveries help us understand Mendelian disorders?
2. How does the study of Mendelian disorders help us understand complex diseases?