Waardenburg Syndrome Research Paper

Affecting about one in every forty-thousand people, Waardenburg syndrome (WS) is fairly rare. It is an umbrella which includes four genetic conditions, all caused by a mutated or altered gene. Each type affects the individual from birth. All types tend to cause some degree of abnormal pigmentation, hearing loss, and facial abnormalities (see figure 1), and a few types create more serious concerns involving anomalies in the hands and arms, and life-threatening issues of the bowel. We are still learning about the condition, but Petrus Johannes Waardenburg, a Dutch scientist, first described it in 1951, with contributions also made by David Klein.
The more common and less detrimental types of Waardenburg syndrome are WS1 and WS2. WS1 most commonly