Genetics Unzipped

We’re celebrating the actual birthday of the society - founded on the 25th June, 100 years ago - with past president, Nobel laureate and winner of the Genetics Society’s first centenary medal, Sir Paul Nurse (and some very fruity DNA-based cocktails...)Genetics Unzipped is written and presented by Kat Arney, and produced by First Create the Media for the Genetics Society - one of the oldest learned societies in the world dedicated to supporting and promoting the research, teaching and application of genetics. Production by Hannah Varrall.Full show notes, music credits and references online at https://geneticsunzipped.com/blog/2019/7/4/017-happy-100th-birthday-to-us

In this episode from our centenary series exploring 100 ideas in genetics, we’re unravelling the story of the double helix, cracking the triplet code, and sketching out a Punnet square.Genetics Unzipped is written and presented by Kat Arney, and produced by First Create the Media for the Genetics Society - one of the oldest learned societies in the world dedicated to supporting and promoting the research, teaching and application of genetics. Production by Hannah Varrall.Full show notes, music credits and references online at https://geneticsunzipped.com/blog/2019/6/20/016-genetics-by-numbers

In this episode of Genetics Unzipped, reporter Graihagh Jackson loses herself in the Valley of Hybridisation at the Genetics Society's medal-winning garden at the Chelsea Flower Show, and discover the importance of playing with your genes.Genetics Unzipped is written and presented by Kat Arney, and produced by First Create the Media for the Genetics Society - one of the oldest learned societies in the world dedicated to supporting and promoting the research, teaching and application of genetics. Production by Hannah Varrall.Full show notes, music credits and references online at https://geneticsunzipped.com/blog/2019/6/6/015-up-the-garden-path

In this episode from our series exploring 100 ideas in genetics, we’re taking the train to London with William Bateson as he brings Mendel's ideas to Britain, seeking the secrets of snapdragons, and discovering how to build an army of MinIONs.Genetics Unzipped is written and presented by Kat Arney, and produced by First Create the Media for the Genetics Society - one of the oldest learned societies in the world dedicated to supporting and promoting the research, teaching and application of genetics. Production by Hannah Varrall.Full show notes, music credits and references online at GeneticsUnzipped.com

The first draft of the human genome came with a price tag running into billions of dollars. In less than twenty years, the cost of whole genome sequencing had plummeted, making the thousand dollar genome a reality by 2014, and opening up a consumer market for personal genome sequencing - although as geneticist Elaine Mardis quipped, it’s a $1000 genome, and a £100,000 analysis. The price for sequencing continues to fall, and several companies are vying to be the first to break the hundred dollar barrier.But, according to George Church, professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School and one of the world’s leading authorities on genes and genomes, we’re about to see the dawn of the zero dollar genome, making personal whole genome sequencing effectively free in exchange for the data.We also chat with genomics researcher Manuel Corpas about how his experience of personal genome sequencing became very personal once he got his whole family involved, particularly when everyone started competing to see who had the 'best' genes. Genetics Unzipped is written and presented by Kat Arney, and produced by First Create the Media for the Genetics Society - one of the oldest learned societies in the world dedicated to supporting and promoting the research, teaching and application of genetics. Production by Hannah Varrall.Full show notes and links available at https://geneticsunzipped.com/blog/2019/5/9/the-zero-dollar-genome

In this episode from our series exploring 100 ideas in genetics, we explore the discovery of chromosomes - the strands of genetic material within every living cell - take a look at Lyonisation, and solve the case of the missing chromosomes.Genetics Unzipped is written and presented by Kat Arney, and produced by First Create the Media for the Genetics Society - one of the oldest learned societies in the world dedicated to supporting and promoting the research, teaching and application of genetics. Production by Hannah Varrall.Full show notes, music credits and references online at GeneticsUnzipped.com

In this episode we ask, what would have happened if Darwin had read Mendel? And what if they’d been on Twitter? Plus, something else that Darwin would have loved: an ambitious project to sequence the DNA of everything across the tree of life.Presented by Kat Arney, with Greg Radick (University of Leeds) and Dan Mead (Wellcome Sanger Institute).Full transcript, notes and references available from GeneticsUnzipped.com

Kat Arney tells the stories of four women from the history of 20th century genetics, and explores how sexism in scientific culture led to their achievements being overlooked.There's Esther Lederberg, whose work on phage Lambda paved the way for her husband Joshua's 1958 Nobel Prize. She was also the inventor of replica plating - a technique still used in microbiology labs all over the world today - yet struggled to get tenure and recognition for her work.Harriet Creighton, the first graduate student of groundbreaking plant geneticist Barbara McClintock, discovered how chromosomes cross over and switch sections of DNA when germ cells are made. But after seeing how difficult it was for her mentor to get funding, Harriet left research in favour of a career as a university lecturer.Tsuneko Okazaki discovered the eponymous 'Okazaki fragments' - short fragments produced when DNA is copied - together with her husband Reiji. While many said that it was a Nobel-worthy discovery, Reiji died in his 40s, and Tsuneko was never awarded the prize in her own right.And finally, there's the story Martha Chase, whose famous 'blender experiment' with Alfred Hershey helped to prove that DNA carries the genetic information inside cells.Full show notes, including scripts and music credits at GeneticsUnzipped.com

In this episode we bring you a very special interview with Mary-Claire King - one of the world’s leading geneticists, whose work has spanned everything from comparing chimps and humans to finding the first breast cancer gene to reuniting families that have been torn apart.Get the full transcript, links and references from https://geneticsunzipped.com/blog/2019/3/14/009-chimps-cancer-genes-and-missing-kidsProduced by First Create the Media for The Genetics Society. Written and presented by Kat Arney, audio production by Hannah Varrall. Follow us on Twitter @geneticsunzip

This is a special edition of Genetics Unzipped, in association with the Genomics Education programme - part of Health Education England. We’ll be finding out how genomic medicine is coming into the NHS, and what it means for everyone working in the health service.Since the publication of the draft sequence of the human genome back in the early noughties, researchers and doctors have been working hard to harness the secrets within our DNA in order to benefit human health. Progress was slow for several years, due to the high cost and slow pace of sequencing technology. Everything changed with the advent of Next Generation Sequencing in around 2009, making it possible to read the entire sequence of anyone’s genome at low cost and high speed.To realise the potential of this technology in healthcare, the 100,000 Genomes Project was launched in 2012 aiming to sequence - as you might have guessed - 100,000 genomes from people affected by cancer and rare diseases within the NHS. The next chapter began in October 2018, when NHS England launched a brand new Genomic Medicine Service, using insights and information from the new era of large-scale DNA sequencing, known as genomics, to improve the nation’s health. The service is aiming to sequence 500,000 whole genomes over the next five years, as part of the UK government’s broader aims to reach five million genomic tests by 2024.More information and show notes online at Geneticsunzipped.com