Genetic Link to 'The King’s Speech'?

Suzanna Elvidge at Genome Engineering asks whether King George VI's "struggle with stammering," as chronicled in the Academy Award-winning film "The King's Speech," had a genetic basis. In reflecting on research presented by Dennis Drayna and his colleagues at the National Institutes of Health during AAAS 2011, in which the team "linked stammering with the GNPTAB, PNPTG, and NAGPA genes," Elvidge says that this work "will help to confirm stammering as a neurological rather than a behavioral disorder." She adds that "therapeutics that correct the folding of the mutated proteins may have potential in the treatment of stammering, and knowledge of the mutations could lead to the development of diagnostics that help identify stammering that is likely to continue beyond childhood."