Genetics Unzipped

In this episode we’re testing the air for tigers and digging up dead bodies as we explore the exciting new field of environmental DNA. Dr Sally Le Page chats with Prof. Elizabeth Clare about sampling the DNA of rare species from the air, and Dr Kirstin Meyer-Kaiser and Charles Konsitzke tells us about their project using eDNA to recover the missing bodies of fallen service personnel.Full show notes, transcript and references online at GeneticsUnzipped.com Follow us on Twitter @GeneticsUnzipThis episode of Genetics Unzipped was written, presented and produced by Emma Werner and Sally Le Page.This podcast is created by First Create the Media for the Genetics Society - one of the oldest learned societies dedicated to promoting research, training, teaching and public engagement in all areas of genetics.

This podcast is part of a miniseries of interviews with speakers from the 2022 annual conference of the Adelphi Genetics Forum - a learned society that aims to promote research and discussion concerning the scientific understanding of human heredity. Formerly known as the Galton Institute, and before that, the Eugenics Education Society, the society has changed its name to the Adelphi Genetics Forum to firmly reject and distance itself from the discredited and damaging ideas of its namesake, Francis Galton – widely viewed as the founder of eugenics.The last lecture of the day was given by Michele Goodwin - Chancellor’s Professor of Law and Director of the Centre for Biotechnology and Global Health Policy at the University of California Irvine, and also a senior lecturer at Harvard Medical School. Her talk focused on how the long shadow of eugenics and white supremacy persists into the present day and remain embedded in contemporary political frameworks, and why this pernicious ideology is taking so long to die. So, how does she start thinking about such a complex and challenging topic?You can find out more about the Adelphi Genetics Forum, including their grants, awards and publications, at adelphigenetics.org You can check out the rest of this series on the Genetics Unzipped podcast feed – just search for Genetics Unzipped on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. This series was produced by the team at First Create The Media – that’s Kat Arney, Sally Le Page and Emma Werner, with help from Ed Prosser and Frankie Pike. Our music is Drops of H2O by J. Lang, licensed under Creative Commons.

This podcast is part of a miniseries of interviews with speakers from the 2022 annual conference of the Adelphi Genetics Forum - a learned society that aims to promote research and discussion concerning the scientific understanding of human heredity. Formerly known as the Galton Institute, and before that, the Eugenics Education Society, the society has changed its name to the Adelphi Genetics Forum to firmly reject and distance itself from the discredited and damaging ideas of its namesake, Francis Galton – widely viewed as the founder of eugenics.Much of Francis Galton’s academic life is associated with University College London, or UCL, and he bequeathed not only his archive but also an endowment for the UK’s first professorial chair in Eugenics. The University’s Galton Laboratory was finally folded into a larger department of genetics, evolution and environment in 2013, and the Galton Lecture theatre was only renamed in 2020. So why did Galton’s name persist for so long? And, looking back, why was he even supported by the University in the first place? These are exactly the kinds of questions that Joe Cain, Professor of History and Philosophy of Biology at UCL, has been trying to answer.You can find out more about the Adelphi Genetics Forum, including their grants, awards and publications, at adelphigenetics.org You can check out the rest of this series on the Genetics Unzipped podcast feed – just search for Genetics Unzipped on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. This series was produced by the team at First Create The Media – that’s Kat Arney, Sally Le Page and Emma Werner, with help from Ed Prosser and Frankie Pike. Our music is Drops of H2O by J. Lang, licensed under Creative Commons.

This podcast is part of a miniseries of interviews with speakers from the 2022 annual conference of the Adelphi Genetics Forum - a learned society that aims to promote research and discussion concerning the scientific understanding of human heredity. Formerly known as the Galton Institute, and before that, the Eugenics Education Society, the society has changed its name to the Adelphi Genetics Forum to firmly reject and distance itself from the discredited and damaging ideas of its namesake, Francis Galton – widely viewed as the founder of eugenics.Anneke Lucassen is Professor of Genomic Medicine & Director of the Centre for Personalised Medicine at the University of Oxford and Professor of Clinical Genetics at the University of Southampton. Her talk, titled “Genomic Medicine, Diverse Data and the Language of Race, Ancestry and Ethnicity” explored the issues caused by a lack of diversity in genomic databases, and the challenges of addressing this in a way that doesn’t cause additional injustice and harm. Kat Arney started by asking why it’s so necessary to do this work.You can find out more about the Adelphi Genetics Forum, including their grants, awards and publications, at adelphigenetics.org You can check out the rest of this series on the Genetics Unzipped podcast feed – just search for Genetics Unzipped on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. This series was produced by the team at First Create The Media – that’s Kat Arney, Sally Le Page and Emma Werner, with help from Ed Prosser and Frankie Pike. Our music is Drops of H2O by J. Lang, licensed under Creative Commons.

This podcast is part of a miniseries of interviews with speakers from the 2022 annual conference of the Adelphi Genetics Forum - a learned society that aims to promote research and discussion concerning the scientific understanding of human heredity. Formerly known as the Galton Institute, and before that, the Eugenics Education Society, the society has changed its name to the Adelphi Genetics Forum to firmly reject and distance itself from the discredited and damaging ideas of its namesake, Francis Galton – widely viewed as the founder of eugenics.Dr Brian Donovan is a senior research scientist at BSCS Science learning – the oldest science education non-profit organisation in the United States. They have a long history in teaching biology, having been developing biology curricula for over 50 years, and were responsible for reintroducing evolution into American high school biology textbooks. His talk explored how better understanding of genetics and genomics in schools can help to dismantle white supremacist culture. Kat Arney started by asking Brian how his interest in biology education intersects with the topic of eugenics.You can find out more about the Adelphi Genetics Forum, including their grants, awards and publications, at adelphigenetics.org You can check out the rest of this series on the Genetics Unzipped podcast feed – just search for Genetics Unzipped on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. This series was produced by the team at First Create The Media – that’s Kat Arney, Sally Le Page and Emma Werner, with help from Ed Prosser and Frankie Pike. Our music is Drops of H2O by J. Lang, licensed under Creative Commons.

This podcast is part of a miniseries of interviews with speakers from the 2022 annual conference of the Adelphi Genetics Forum - a learned society that aims to promote research and discussion concerning the scientific understanding of human heredity. Formerly known as the Galton Institute, and before that, the Eugenics Education Society, the society has changed its name to the Adelphi Genetics Forum to firmly reject and distance itself from the discredited and damaging ideas of its namesake, Francis Galton – widely viewed as the founder of eugenics.Dr Adam Rutherford is a writer and broadcaster, and is an honorary senior research associate at University College London, where he first trained as a geneticist in what was then known as the Galton laboratory. He’s the author of the recent book Control, which explores the dark past and troubling present of eugenics, and gave this year’s Adelphi Lecture on ‘Eugenics and the misuse of Mendel’. To begin our conversation, I asked him where Galton’s ideas originally came from.You can find out more about the Adelphi Genetics Forum, including their grants, awards and publications, at adelphigenetics.org You can check out the rest of this series on the Genetics Unzipped podcast feed – just search for Genetics Unzipped on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. This series was produced by the team at First Create The Media – that’s Kat Arney, Sally Le Page and Emma Werner, with help from Ed Prosser and Frankie Pike. Our music is Drops of H2O by J. Lang, licensed under Creative Commons.

CONTENT NOTE: This interview includes discussion of rape, forced sterilisation and first-hand experience of state-sanctioned eugenic policies.This podcast is part of a miniseries of interviews with speakers from the 2022 annual conference of the Adelphi Genetics Forum - a learned society that aims to promote research and discussion concerning the scientific understanding of human heredity. Formerly known as the Galton Institute, and before that, the Eugenics Education Society, the society has changed its name to the Adelphi Genetics Forum to firmly reject and distance itself from the discredited and damaging ideas of its namesake, Francis Galton – widely viewed as the founder of eugenics.Elaine Riddick – a Black woman who grew up in North Carolina - was kidnapped and raped and became pregnant at the age of just 13. Nine months later, in 1968, she was forcibly sterilised by the state without her knowledge during the process of having her son Tony, now a successful businessman. She was not the only one. Tens of thousands of people were sterilised in the US as a result of eugenic policies in the decades following the second world war. Today, Elaine is a steadfast campaigner for women’s rights, and is the Executive Director of the Rebecca Project for Justice, dedicated to protecting life, dignity and freedom for people in the US and Africa. Kat Arney asked her to share her story.You can find out more about the Adelphi Genetics Forum, including their grants, awards and publications, at adelphigenetics.org You can check out the rest of this series on the Genetics Unzipped podcast feed – just search for Genetics Unzipped on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. This series was produced by the team at First Create The Media – that’s Kat Arney, Sally Le Page and Emma Werner, with help from Ed Prosser and Frankie Pike. Our music is Drops of H2O by J. Lang, licensed under Creative Commons.

This podcast is part of a miniseries of interviews with speakers from the 2022 annual conference of the Adelphi Genetics Forum - a learned society that aims to promote research and discussion concerning the scientific understanding of human heredity. Formerly known as the Galton Institute, and before that, the Eugenics Education Society, the society has changed its name to the Adelphi Genetics Forum to firmly reject and distance itself from the discredited and damaging ideas of its namesake, Francis Galton – widely viewed as the founder of eugenics.In this first episode, I spoke to Turi King, the President of the Adelphi Genetics Forum and Professor of Public Engagement and Genetics in the Department of Genetics and Genome Biology at the University of Leicester, to discover the story of the society and why it was finally time to change its name. You can find out more about the Adelphi Genetics Forum, including their grants, awards and publications, at adelphigenetics.org You can check out the rest of this series on the Genetics Unzipped podcast feed – just search for Genetics Unzipped on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. This series was produced by the team at First Create The Media – that’s Kat Arney, Sally Le Page and Emma Werner, with help from Ed Prosser and Frankie Pike. Our music is Drops of H2O by J. Lang, licensed under Creative Commons.

In this episode we’re taking a look at the birds and the bees - not like that! - from the unusual migratory habits of European blackcaps and the ‘greatest shoal on earth’ to the division of labour in a beehive, we’ll be exploring the role that genetics plays in shaping animal behaviours.Full show notes, transcript and references online at GeneticsUnzipped.com Follow us on Twitter @GeneticsUnzipThis episode of Genetics Unzipped was written and presented by Kat Arney with audio production by Emma Werner and Sally Le Page.This podcast is produced by First Create the Media for the Genetics Society - one of the oldest learned societies dedicated to promoting research, training, teaching and public engagement in all areas of genetics.

There’s something unnatural about carnivorous plants. We’re so used to plants being at the bottom of the food chain, that to see them trapping, killing and eating animals seems to go against the laws of nature. But of course, carnivory in plants is very real and has evolved multiple times in response to a lack of nutrients. In this episode we’re looking at how carnivorous plants work, what lives inside the digestive juices, and even a future with carnivorous crops.Full show notes, transcript and references online at GeneticsUnzipped.com Follow us on Twitter @GeneticsUnzipThis episode of Genetics Unzipped was written, presented and produced by Sally Le Page.This podcast is created by First Create the Media for the Genetics Society - one of the oldest learned societies dedicated to promoting research, training, teaching and public engagement in all areas of genetics.