The Genetics Podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

This week on The Genetics Podcast, Patrick is joined by Versha Pleasant, Clinical Assistant Professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, University of Michigan and Director of the Cancer Genetics and Breast Health Clinic at Von Voigtlander Women’s Hospital. They discuss ongoing disparities in healthcare, in particular why black women in the US have a 40% higher chance of dying from breast cancer than white women, the impact of the US Educate Act on equality, diversity and inclusion education, and much more.

00:00:00 – Intro to The Genetics Podcast

00:01:52 – Welcome to Versha

00:03:22 – How black women have a 40% higher chance of mortality from breast cancer than white women, and the biggest drivers of this disparity

00:07:09 – Multifaceted approaches to addressing disparities

00:09:10 – Racial health duplicity and increasing access to genetic testing and mammography for black women

00:13:51 – The challenges of using precision medicine to stratify risk in black communities and historical harms in US medical research

00:14:29 – How to design for inclusive studies that effectively represent communities of colour

00:16:13 – Considering universal genetic testing and counseling for black women

00:21:24 – The logistics of making universal testing a reality, and the importance of community education and trust building

00:27:18 – What Versha is focused on next and the big topics she wants to tackle

00:33:24 – The role of community education and diversifying modes of communication for knowledge sharing

00:34:36 – Versha’s perspectives on the US Educate Act and the impact it could have on what doctors of the future are taught

00:40:52 – Versha’s advice to people who would like to pursue a similar career in medicine

00:43:28 – Where Patrick sees genetics evolving in the next ten years and his vision for the future of The Genetics Podcast

00:47:39 – Closing remarks

Find out more

Universal Genetic Counseling and Testing for Black Women: A Risk-Stratified Approach to Addressing Breast Cancer Disparities: https://www.clinical-breast-cancer.com/article/S1526-8209(24)00338-0/fulltext 

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This week on The Genetics Podcast, Patrick is joined by Jonathon Hill, associate professor at Brigham Young University and co-founder and VP of Wasatch Biolabs. Jonathan and Patrick discuss the power of long-read sequencing, how Wasatch Biolabs was created, and how Jonathon has fostered valuable collaborations between academic labs and Wasatch Biolabs.

Summary: This week, Patrick is joined by Jim Wilson, Professor of Human Genetics at the University of Edinburgh. Jim discusses the genetics of isolated populations and the Vikings Genes project, which has led him to work with communities from more than 25 Scottish islands, and how new sequencing programs can dramatically improve health outcomes for these groups. He also touches on mapping Prince William’s mitochondrial DNA, lobbying Westminster to raise awareness of genetic screening, and his Irish Film & Television Awards (IFTA) winning work with the Irish Traveller community.

In this week’s episode Patrick speaks to Sonya Chowdhury, Chris Ponting and Andy Devereux-Cooke from the DecodeME project, the world’s largest genetic myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME) and chronic fatigue syndrome study. They discuss the symptoms of ME, the challenges facing ME and chronic fatigue patients, the issues surrounding funding and the future of personalised treatments.

This week’s guest, Paulo Fontes, is a Professor of Surgery and Chief Medical Officer at LyGenesis, an organ regeneration technology platform with a current focus on liver regeneration for patients with end stage liver disease. He talks to Patrick about how our lymph nodes can act as a 'bioreactor' to regrow functioning organs, how liver cells could be used in multiple transplants, and shares his thoughts on the future of organ transplants.

In this week’s episode Patrick speaks to Director of the Big Data Institute at University of Oxford, Professor Cecilia Lindgren, about her biggest eureka moment, the power of collaboration and consortiums across academia and industry to grow genetic sample sizes and accelerate research, and the importance of best practice standards to enable genetic research to scale successfully.

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In this special episode we’re sharing Patrick’s guest appearance on GIANT’s Healthy Innovators Podcast. He talks to the podcast’s host, Barry Shrier, about the need to accelerate the development of new treatment options, how personalised medicine is changing the future of healthcare and what it takes to create a successful startup in the genomic medicine landscape.

As more and more people get their DNA sequenced, through health care initiatives, biobanks and direct-to-consumer testing, an array of ethical questions arise. From how results are shared with research participants, to the ambiguities surrounding gene editing, Patrick and this week’s guest, Dr Anna Lewis, Research Associate at the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard, dive deep into the big questions surrounding genetics and medicine.

For many Long COVID patients the debilitating long-term symptoms they experience emerged after what, at first, appeared to be a mild COVID-19 infection. Professor David Strain, Senior Clinical Lecturer at University of Exeter Medical School and Honorary Consultant in Medicine, speaks to Patrick about the patterns he saw emerge while working on the frontline of the pandemic. From the first time David attended a meeting about COVID-19, at a 3am webinar broadcast from China, to working with Sano to help identify the genetic markers of Long COVID, they discuss the still emerging impact of the condition, from the first use of the term 'Long COVID' in May 2020, up until today.