S6.27: Next Generation Sequence: Forging new paths in genetics
Sally: Hello, and welcome to Genetics Unzipped - the Genetics Society podcast, with me, Dr Sally Le Page. This episode is all about the next generation, as we meet some of the rising stars in genetics!
LISTENER SURVEY
As you’ve probably heard in our last few episodes, Genetics Unzipped is running a listener survey, to help inform the future direction of this podcast. The Genetics Society has supported the show for the last five years but is now having to make some difficult decisions, including whether to scale it back or seek funding support from sponsors.
The Genetics Society would love to hear your thoughts to help them make those choices. So please go to geneticsunzipped.com/survey or follow the link in the show notes and fill out our very short questionnaire, telling us what you like and don’t like about the podcast and your thoughts on future changes. It’ll only take you a few minutes, and at the end of it, you can enter a prize draw to win a signed copy of Kat’s book, Rebel Cell: Cancer, evolution and the science of life. We’ll be closing the survey at the end of January, so if you’re listening to this podcast when it comes out, you’ve got a week to tell us your thoughts, or forever hold your peace!
Kat will be back at the end of the show with a big update about the future of Genetics Unzipped, but the long and short of it is that this may be our final episode for some time. So since you might not hear from us for a little while, we wanted to look ahead into the future for what we are calling our “Next Generation Sequence”, that is a sequence of interviews with the next generation of geneticists (yes, we are very proud of that pun) who have won Genetics Society awards for their research.
Image courtesy of Owen Greenwood
Owen Greenwood: Trapping skinks in paradise
To start us off, we’re taking a trip to the Atlantic islands of Bermuda where Manchester Metropolitan and Chester Zoo PhD student Owen Greenwood spent the summer working with Bermuda skinks, all thanks to his 2023 Heredity Fieldwork Grant funded by the Genetics Society.
Click here to read the full transcript…
Pontus Skoglund: Ancient DNA, new discoveries
We’re now moving from a trip to Bermuda to a trip to the past. Pontus Skoglund leads the Ancient Genomics Laboratory at the Francis Crick Institute in London. He is the winner of this year’s Balfour Lecture, a Genetics Society award celebrating contributions to genetics from an outstanding young investigator; and uses ancient DNA to unlock the secrets of human evolution, old diseases and population migration.
Click here to read the full transcript…
Image courtesy of Pontus Skoglund
Image courtesy of Louisa Zoliewski
Louisa Zoliewski: From chubby mice to everyday toxins
In 2022, Dr Louisa Zolkiewski was awarded the inaugural Bruce Cattanach prize from the Genetics Society for an outstanding PhD thesis related to the use of non-human in vivo animal models. Following her PhD, Louisa decided to apply her skills and genetics knowledge in an industry position, working in genetic toxicology.
Click here to read the full transcript…
Coming up from the Genetics Society!
Firstly, the deadline for the next round of Junior Scientist Conference Grants is on February 1st. Grants of up to £750 are available to Genetics Society “junior scientist” members to attend conferences in the area of Genetics.
Also on the 1st of February is the deadline for the next Heredity Fieldwork Grant - the very same grant that allowed our guest Owen to travel to Bermuda last summer for his PhD project. Awards of up to £2,000 may cover travel and accommodation costs associated with a field-based genetic research project.
The 15th of February is the deadline for the next Genetics Society quarterly training grant, aimed at enabling members to attend short training courses, or a collaborative visit to another laboratory to train in specific genetic or genomic techniques.
And finally, you have until February 26th to sign up for this year’s Communicating your Science Workshop, held at Chicheley Hall on 22nd-24th April 2024. The workshop will be led by Royal Institution Christmas lecturer Prof. Alison Woollard, Radio 4 presenter and comedian Helen Keen, and a bunch of us from the First Create the Media team, including yours truly. So come develop your communication skills with us, we promise it’ll be a really fun few days and the Genetics Society will cover travel, accommodation and meals for successful applicants!
That’s all for now. Thanks to Owen Greenwood, Dr Pontus Skoglund and Dr Louisa Zolkiewski. Before I sign off, here’s a quick message from Kat Arney about what’s happening next for the podcast - over to you, Kat.
Kat: After five years of fortnightly podcasts and more brilliant guests and stories than I can count, we have some news to share. As you should know by now, Genetics Unzipped is funded by The Genetics Society, and in this current financial climate they’re having to make some difficult decisions. This means that for now, the podcast is going on hiatus. We’re not sure if or when we’ll return, but we’re doing our best to find additional financial support or corporate sponsorship to get us back on the air - and back in your ears - as soon as possible. So if you or anyone you know works for an organisation that wants to reach our audience of many thousands of listeners all over the world who love genetics, around half of whom work in a genetics or health-related field, then please do drop us a line at podcast@geneticsunzipped.com.
For myself and all the team at First Create The Media, this podcast is one of our favourite things we do, and we’re gutted to have to put it on hold. Thank you for listening, whether you’ve been there since the early days or are only just getting into it (in which case, hoo boy have you got some treats waiting for you in our back catalogue), and I do hope we’ll be back bringing the best news and stories from the world of genetics to you again very soon.
Sally: Thanks Kat, and it’s why the listener survey is so valuable to us because it helps us approach potential sponsors and makes sure we spend what funding we have making episodes you enjoy listening to. So please if you have five or ten minutes to spare before the end of January, go to geneticsunzipped.com/survey and let us know what you think.
For more information about this podcast including show notes, transcripts, links, references and everything else head over to geneticsunzipped.com You can find us on Twitter @geneticsunzip and please do take a moment to leave us a rating in the Spotify app or review us on Apple podcasts - it really makes a difference and helps more people discover the show.
This episode of Genetics Unzipped was written, presented and produced by me, Sally Le Page. It’s a First Create the Media production for The Genetics Society - one of the oldest learned societies dedicated to promoting research, training, teaching and public engagement in all areas of genetics. You can find out more and apply to join at genetics.org.uk. The executive producer is Kat Arney, our theme music was composed by Dan Pollard, the logo was designed by James Mayall, and audio production was by Emma Werner. Thank you for listening, and until next time, and I really hope there is a next time, goodbye.
