Happy Accidents: Beneficial Mutations in Humans

A while back, I was talking with a group of young students about evolution and natural selection, and I was teaching them about the role of mutations when I was asked an interesting question that I failed to answer.

The concept of mutations can be tough to grasp, because mutation sounds like a really bad thing, and indeed it often is. A mutation is essentially an accident in your DNA, and while most of them are harmless, most of the rest have unfortunate side effects. And yet mutation is one of the driving forces of evolution: natural selection weeds out the bad accidents and encourages the good ones, and life changes through the generations.

Which brings me to this question I was asked: Are there examples of good mutations in humans?

Advancing Against AIDS

Your body is naturally equipped with a highly skilled defense force, complete with advanced targeting systems, devastating weaponry, and specially-trained assassins.  It is this force that protects you from invaders and attackers trying to force their way in and wreak havoc with your body.  But this system isn’t flawless, and those pesky pathogens can be crafty, and every now and then, one of them sneaks by.  This is where medical science comes in.  Medicine is the cavalry, designed to give your body’s natural defenses a helping hand in warding off nature’s more resilient marauders.

Sometimes an enemy comes along that your body really needs some help with.  Not every disease is as docile as a rhinovirus.  Way toward the top of Medicine’s Most Wanted list is HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, responsible for the deaths of well over a million people a year.  A vaccine for combating HIV has evaded medical science for years, but recent research brings new hope to the battle.