Summary excerpt from the Statement of Genetic Alliance: The Genetic Alliance is an international coalition comprised of millions of individuals with genetic conditions and more than 600 advocacy, research and healthcare organizations representing them. As a broad-based coalition of key stakeholders, the Alliance works to promote healthier lives for everyone. Alliance programs support individuals with genetic conditions, educate the public and health professionals and work toward the establishment of consumer-centered public policies. It is our constant involvement with our membership, including consumer organizations, that allows the Alliance to keep its fingers on the pulse of the needs of the people affected by genetic conditions. We recognize that genetic conditions are universal; every man, woman and child has some genetic predisposition, condition or disease resulting from inherited or acquired genetic changes. Families are central in the lives of those living with genetic conditions, and the hope of all these families, and their children and grandchildren, lies in medical advances resulting from research. As the implications of the sequencing of the human genome unfold, genetics research will be more keenly recognized as a significant component in understanding how body systems work—and sometimes don’t work. These new understandings are totally dependent on the participation of people—often children—with genetic conditions in research studies.