Behind the Genes

Professor Robert Weinberg: Why do we get cancer?

"Mutations are the price that all animals must pay, starting with jellyfish all the way up to us humans"

Today on The G Word, Parker Moss, our Chief Commercial Officer is joined by Professor Robert (Bob) Weinberg. Professor Weinberg is a founding member of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research and is a well-respected Professor in the MIT Department of Biology. He is the author of the legendary paper, the Hallmarks of Cancer, which was one of the most cited papers on life sciences of all time, and still provides us with much of the language of modern cancer biology. 

They discuss why cancer occurs, why it spreads, the challenges and the hopes for early detection, and how research is contributing to improving survival for patients around the world.  

Professor Kate Tatton Brown: Knowledge is changing the world of healthcare as we know it

"We need to think about Genomics and we need to think about education because both are going to massively, massively change, and improve. I think we will be living in a very different space [in 30 years] than we are now...we are at the tip of the Iceberg."

In this episode of The G Word, our CEO Chris Wigley is joined by Professor Kate Tatton Brown who is the Clinical Director and Head of the Genomics Education Programme at Health Education England. She's also a consultant in clinical genetics at St. George's University Hospital, and a Professor in clinical genetics and genomics education with St. George's, within the University of London. 

Together, they discuss Kate's pursuit of education for others around the complex topics of genomic medicine and research. Delving into the fundamentals of undergraduate and postgraduate curriculum changes, NHS involvement in genomic healthcare and the necessity of moving forward within research. They also discuss the importance of genomic awareness, access to testing and their project GeNotes - genomic notes for clinicians. 

Daphne Koller: Machine learning and multimodal data in drug discovery

“We are now in a world where there is this an abundance of data, which is only the beginning to what we're likely to be able to see in the coming years. At the same time, we have this incredible set of machine learning methods [...]. This seems to be a moment in time when those two tidal waves are about to come together in a way that offers us the opportunity to unlock some of the underlying secrets and complexities that underlie human health and human disease.”

This week we are sharing for posterity the discussion that Parker Moss, our Chief Commercial Officer, hosted earlier this month at the Genomics England Research Summit. Parker’s discussion was with the world renowned Daphne Koller, the founder and CEO of insitro.

Parker and Daphne explored the use of AI and machine learning in drug discovery and discussed the value of multimodal analysis. They also touched on some of the challenges of causal inference and target validation with unsupervised machine learning methodologies. Parker and Daphne then discussed the recent partnership between Genomics England and insitro.

Dr Genya Dana: The power of genomics

“What will be important is to engage with the patient community, it will be a very important process to complement the science that we are doing and to engage with those ultimate end users. That is the beauty of having these conversations with the people who are going to eventually end up adopting the technology.”

Today's episode of The G Word is a little different. We are sharing a live recording of a recent discussion at the Public Policy Projects Global Genomics Conference between Chris Wigley, our CEO, and Dr Genya Dana, Global Head of Health Policy at Avellino.

In their conversation, they delved into all things policy, such as data, ethics and education as genomics comes into the mainstream of healthcare and society. They also discussed the importance of engaging with the participant community and Dr Genya Dana’s work in the Precision Medicine Department at the World Economic Forum.

Professor, Sir Munir Pirmohamed: Disease, drugs and genomes

"If we had the same immune system, all of us, then we would be extinct by now"

 

On todays episode of The G Word, our CEO, Chris Wigley, is joined with Professor, Sir Munir Pirmohamed, a British clinical pharmacologist and geneticist. Munir is also the NHS chair of Pharmacogenomics at the University of Liverpool. 

They discuss the importance of pharmaceutical drug development, understanding genome structures to better identify and predict diseases and how our lifestyle choices can lead to variation in how our genes  interact with drugs. They also delve into the complexity of pharmacogenomic decisions, discussing, taking into account both clinical and genomic factors. 

Greg Elgar: How does clinical whole genome sequencing work in the real world?

"We're taking the native DNA molecule that's actually from the cell and we're reading the sequence of that molecule. That comes with some tremendous, enormous benefits, but it also comes with it some huge challenges."

On today's episode of The G Word, we are joined by Parker Moss, our Chief Commercial Officer at Genomics England, and Greg Elgar, the Director of Sequencing Economic England.

They discuss techniques such as preparation ahead of sequencing itself and the logistics to get blood and tissue from humans into the sequencing lab in Cambridge. They also delve into the science of how sequencing itself works, what is needed for accurate sequencing and highlight and debate the implications of genomics, as well as, how it comes into the mainstream of health care and society.

Dalia Kasperaviciute, Alona Sosinsky, Francisco Azuaje and Maxine Mackintosh: Pick of the Genomics England Research Summit!

“I Remember when I got to the stage to introduce Edwin Cuppen, who was the first speaker on the cancer Genomics track, and I was just… it’s happening! It’s happening! We did it!”

On today's episode of The G Word, we are joined by the chairs for scientific content at the  recent Genomics England Research Summit: Dalia Kasperaviciute, Head of Genomic Data Sciences for Rare Disease; Alona Sosinsky, Scientific Director for Cancer; Francisco Azuaje, Director of Bioinformatics, and Maxine Mackintosh, Programme Lead for Diverse Data, all at Genomics England.

They choose their picks of the Summit, some of their favourite moments, and how it felt to get together again with the genomics community under one roof. They also discuss how what they saw and heard highlights the power and implications of genomics, as it comes into the mainstream of health care and society.

Angela Saini: The history of race science, the use of language and its implications on genomics

"The vast majority of what we think of as human differences, cultural and linguistic, the act of categorization in science itself, I've come to see as fundamentally fraught and political."

On this week's episode we join Diksha Srivastava from our Diverse Data team, Ewan Birney from EMBL-EBI and special guest Angela Saini, a science journalist, broadcaster and the author of best selling books Geek Nation, Inferior, and Superior: The Return of Race Science, published in 2019. Angela's work has appeared in Science, Wired, The Guardian, The New Humanist and New Scientist. She is also a presenter on the BBC Radio.

They discuss about the history of race science, the use of language and its implications on genomics.

Nobel Laureate Harold Varmus: Cancer biology and the future of cancer research

“It's critical that the general public understand that science is a long process, and that science is a process that often begins with the art of the feasible. […] We wouldn't be anywhere without computers, we wouldn't be anywhere without DNA sequencing methods. That not only gives me confidence, but it also makes me feel that there's an awful lot left to do.”

In this week’s episode of The G Word, our Chief Ecosystems and Partnership Officer Parker Moss is joined by Harold Varmus, who was previously the director of the National Institute of Health and of the National Cancer Institute and is currently the Lewis Thomas University Professor of Medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine and a senior associate at the New York Genome Center. He also won the 1989 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discovery of the cellular origin of retroviral oncogenes with J. Michael Bishop.

Today they discuss cancer biology, the future of cancer research and the major questions that studying diverse ethnicities will uncover through genomics. Harold and Parker also discussed some of the big challenges of bringing molecular diagnostics and genomics into lower income countries and the technologies that are continuing to help explore functional genomics in cancer.

Dr Annalisa Jenkins: The role of genomics in therapeutics

“Patients are absolutely firmly at the centre. That every day we get out of bed, with the patient and their caregivers and families, front of mind. […] You can't be successful in drug development and novel therapeutic development, without engaging the patient communities, as a partner and as a collaborator on the journey.”

In this week’s episode of The G Word, our CEO Chris Wigley is joined by Dr Annalisa Jenkins, non-Executive Director at Perspectrum Ltd, Oncimmune, AVROBIO, Affimed, COMPASS Pathways and Genomics England 

They discuss Annalisa’s background across life sciences and the role of genomics in development of diagnostics and therapeutics. They also discuss the importance of patient communities.