The Genome & the Epigenome

The Genome & the Epigenome

Date: Monday 6th March 2017

Time: 7pm

Venue: the Victorian Bar, Tron Theatre

Speaker: Douglas Vernimmen

Genome vs Epigenome: The Clay and the Mould

It is thirteen years since The Human Genome project sequenced the entire DNA in a human cell and, ever since, scientists have been trying to understand the meaning of these three billion letters, which form the human genome. However, it has also become clear that this “Book of Life” can be biologically interpreted in different ways.

In this talk, I will introduce the meaning of the genome (The Book of Life), the epigenome (its biological interpretation), and the ethical implications of our growing knowledge of this field.

Epigenetics is the study of a group of small molecules that affect the way genetic information is used, rather than the DNA sequence itself. Interestingly epigenetics is strongly influenced by the environment, including the effects of nutrition, stress, physical activity and other factors. The most striking example is the case of identical twins (who have an identical DNA sequence) that appear identical during childhood but become more distinct during their adult life, and even developing different diseases.

Biography:

Douglas Vernimmen read Biology (BSc) and Molecular Biology (MSc) and gained his PhD in Biochemistry at the University of Liège (Belgium) in 2003. Afterwards, he moved to the University of Oxford in the Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine as a MRC Postdoctoral fellow. Douglas is now an independent scientist at The University of Edinburgh at The Roslin Institute. His work is now focussed on transcription activity in individual cells and epigenetic regulation in leukaemia. Beside his scientific work, Douglas is also the recipient of over 200 awards and distinctions for his international contribution to Photography, and recently published a book, “Oxford Through the Lens”, aiming to fund scholarships at the University of Oxford.