Chromosome 8p is a rare genetic condition with approximately 350 patients around the world and counting. Right now, science does not have the means to treat this condition. The good news is that the scientific community is making substantial progress and together with Project 8p, we are going to do everything we can to help.

Associated symptoms and findings may vary greatly in range and severity from case to case. Intellectual disability, congenital heart defects, epilepsy, autism, agenesis of corpus collosum, and sensory processing disorders are some of the diagnoses found with a Chromosome 8p karyotype. Common features include growth deficiency; cognitive impairments; mild malformations of the skull and facial (craniofacial) region, such as a small head (microcephaly) and vertical skin folds that may cover the eyes inner corners (epicanthal folds); heart (cardiac) abnormalities. Additional craniofacial features may also be present that tend to become less apparent with age, such as a short, broad nose; a low, wide nasal bridge; and/or a small jaw (micrognathia).

The majority of 8p individuals have developmental delays including disordered acquisition of cognitive and social competence and delays in reaching developmental milestones. In most cases, Chromosome 8, appears to result from spontaneous (de novo) errors very early in embryonic development that occur for unknown reasons and are not inherited. Recently, we have found families where the mutation has also been inherited but different manifestations of the symptoms.

Ring14 indicates an alteration of chromosome 14, which acquires a ring shape because the two ends, one of the long arm and the other of the short arm, join together. This joining takes place as a result of two breaking events at the end of each arm, which generally involves a partial loss of genetic material of chromosome 14. This chromosomal abnormality can affect every cell or be mosaic with a cell line that has lost a complete chromosome 14 (monosomy 14).

Ring14 chromosome damage is associated with a number of frequent signs and symptoms and results in a disease characterized by both syndromic intellectual disability in addition to multiple phenotypic abnormalities. The diagnosis of Ring14 is obtained through a simple chromosome analysis.

Chromosome 15q11.2-13.1 duplication syndrome (dup15q syndrome) is a clinically identifiable syndrome which results from the duplication (or multiplication) of a portion of chromosome 15. Each chromosome has unique regions or bands that contain genes, and each band is labeled numerically. The extra genetic material known as Dup15q Syndrome contains the bands on chromosome 15 at the q arm labeled 11.2-13.1. It can span past these bands but must contain the 11.2 – 13.1 region to be identified as Dup15q Syndrome. These duplications most commonly occur in one of two forms. These include an extra isodicentric 15 chromosome, abbreviated idic(15), or an interstitial duplication 15, abbreviated int dup(15).

Chromosome 15 is one of the 23 pairs of chromosomes in humans. Humans are born with 2 copies of each chromosome – 1 from the mother (maternal) and 1 from the father (paternal). Depending on which parental chromosome the extra genetic material is on, symptoms may present differently. In most cases of chromosome 15q11.2-13.1 duplication syndrome, the chromosome duplication is not inherited, but de novo, which means the multiplication occurred as a random event during early embryonic development.

There are many other genetically derived names that are commonly used in the diagnosis for dup15q syndrome, including; 15q11.2-q13.1 duplication syndrome, Inverted duplication 15 (inv dup15), Partial trisomy 15, Isodicentric chromosome 15 syndrome [Idic(15)], Supernumerary marker chromosome 15 (SMC15), Partial tetrasomy 15q, etc. All of these names describe the genetics of 'dup15q syndrome'.