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Face It
09 April 2018

Face It

Look at the faces of any family and you’ll see similarities. Perhaps a daughter has her dad’s cheekbones, or a son has his mother’s nose. The fact that facial features can be inherited tells us that at least some of the components of face shape must be encoded in our genes. But our appearance is a combination of nature and nurture, so efforts to develop genetic ‘e-fits’ – being able to tell what someone’s face looks like solely from their DNA – have had limited success. To find out more detail about how our genes influence our features, researchers have mapped the genetic makeup of more than 2,300 people onto three-dimensional scans of their faces. By focusing on the effect of different genetic variations on the shape and size of 60 distinct areas – highlighted in green in this image – the scientists were able to find 15 new genes involved in facial features.

Written by Kat Arney

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BPoD stands for Biomedical Picture of the Day. Managed by the MRC Laboratory of Medical Sciences until Jul 2023, it is now run independently by a dedicated team of scientists and writers. The website aims to engage everyone, young and old, in the wonders of biology, and its influence on medicine. The ever-growing archive of more than 4000 research images documents over a decade of progress. Explore the collection and see what you discover. Images are kindly provided for inclusion on this website through the generosity of scientists across the globe.

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