We are Genomics England and our vision is to create a world where everyone benefits from genomic healthcare. Join us every fortnight, where we cover everything from the latest in cutting-edge research to real-life stories from those affected by rare conditions and cancer. With thoughtful conversations, we take you behind the science. You can also tune in to our Genomics 101 explainer series which breaks down complex terms in under 10 minutes.
Episodes
Thursday Jul 29, 2021
Augusto Rendon: Bioinformatics at the heart of Genomics England
Thursday Jul 29, 2021
Thursday Jul 29, 2021
"Within the wider framework of personalised medicine, trying to identify treatments, diagnosis, prognosis, that is about a personalised individual. Genomics plays a really important role because our genomes are unique. Bioinformatics is there to try to identify how those genomes are unique and what they tell us about the consequences of those differences."
In this week’s episode of The G Word #sciencepodcast, Anna Tomlinson, the Chief Communications and Engagement Officer at Genomics England, is joined by Augusto Rendon, the Chief Bioinformatician at Genomics England and the architect and facilitator of our bioinformatics infrastructure. Augusto has a wealth of experience in deploying whole genome sequencing in healthcare. He is a research scientist with a vast background in computational biology and statistical genomics and he coordinated the delivery of various bioinformatics and analytics solutions for the 100,000 Genomes Project.
Today, Augusto talks about the use and anonymisation of data, the role of bioinformatics at Genomics England, personalised treatments and the multidisciplinary aspect of bioinformatics.
Thursday Jul 22, 2021
Ewan Birney: The human genome
Thursday Jul 22, 2021
Thursday Jul 22, 2021
“It's not the number of genes that matter, it's how you use them - quite literally how you switch them on and off. There's a lot of complexity in the human genome, not in the types of genes, the building blocks, the types of Lego, but how you put that Lego together inside each cell, which genes are on and which are off. And, you know, it's still unclear just how all of that works.”
In this week’s episode of The G Word #sciencepodcast, Rich Scott is joined by Ewan Birney, bioinformatician, Deputy Director General of EMBL and Non-Executive Director at Genomics England. Ewan led the analysis of the Human Genome gene set, mouse and chicken genomes and the ENCODE project and his main areas of research include functional genomics, DNA algorithms, statistical methods to analyse genomic information and use of images for chromatin structure.
Today, Ewan talks about his work with the Human Genome Project, the sense of community amongst bioinformaticians and advances in leveraging genomic information. He also talks about which big topics don’t get enough attention and his research group.
Wednesday Jul 14, 2021
Hopkins Van Mil: The significance of public dialogue
Wednesday Jul 14, 2021
Wednesday Jul 14, 2021
“Public dialogue allows citizens, people, members of the public, people like you and me, and broader than that, to come together, to learn about an issue, to talk with specialists in that issue, to engage with each other in that space, and to consider a whole range of diverse perspectives.”
In this week’s episode of The G Word, our CEO Chris Wigley is joined by Henrietta Hopkins, the Director, Insight and Innovation at Hopkins Van Mil. Henrietta is an expert Lead Facilitator and designer of deliberative dialogue research with a particular interest in bringing creativity to public and stakeholder engagement and capacity building. Chris is also joined today by Suzannah Kinsella, Senior Associate at Hopkins Van Mil. She designs engagement activities that help people to influence policies and services in informed and constructive ways. They have both have been involved in a number of specialist dialogue projects run by Hopkins Van Mil, including The National Food Strategy public dialogue and Public dialogues for the Royal Society on gene editing, and neural interfaces.
Today, the group talks about public dialogue, genetic technology and the exploration of the potential for a newborn sequencing programme Hopkins Van Mil has been working on. They discuss how newborn sequencing can help understand the prevalence of rare diseases and develop treatments and how public dialogue allows people to learn, engage and talk to specialists.
Wednesday Jul 07, 2021
Saskia Sanderson: Getting ordinary people to the table
Wednesday Jul 07, 2021
Wednesday Jul 07, 2021
“Why wouldn't we, as a society, seriously start debating the earliest appropriate age where we should start using genomics, not only for treatment and diagnosis, but also for prevention and facilitating earlier detection? Maybe for some it's 18, maybe for others it's childhood - but these are the sorts of questions that we should be debating.”
In this week’s episode of The G Word #sciencepodcast, our CEO Chris Wigley is joined by Saskia Sanderson, Chief Behavioural Scientist at Our Future Health and chartered psychologist. Saskia has a particular interest in applying psychology to translate genomics into better ways to help others, is a freelancer at PHG Foundation and is former Senior Research Social Scientist at Great Ormond Street.
Today, Saskia talks about polygenic risk scores, how scientific research affects real people and sharing GP’s patient data. She also talks about her early career and how we can facilitate public debate.