In this episode of Genetics Unzipped, we look at the genetics of failure—why we fail to lose weight thanks to our genes, and why ignoring genetic information and DNA diversity leads to billions of dollars being wasted on drugs that don’t work.
Cambridge University neuroscientist Giles Yeo talks about his new book, Gene Eating: The science of obesity and the truth about diets, explaining why weight loss is just physics, but the process of losing, gaining or maintaining weight is all about our biology.
Then we report back from the recent Festival of Genomics in London, UK, speaking with biomedical industry expert Paul-Peter Tak, Cecilia Lindskog from the Human Protein Atlas project, and Paul Matthews from Global Gene Corp, to find out why precision and personalized healthcare will only work if it’s based on the right information, whether that’s genetic data, protein expression patterns, or globally diverse genomic data sets.
Find our guests on Twitter and online:
- Giles Yeo: @GilesYeo, website
- Paul-Peter Tak: @PaulPeterTak
- Cecilia Lindskog: @cisselaisa
- Human protein atlas: @humanproteome, website
- Global Gene Corp: @GlobalGeneCorp, website
Full transcript, credits and show notes here.
Genetics Unzipped is presented by award-winning science communicator Dr Kat Arney and produced by First Create the Media for the UK Genetics Society. Follow Kat on Twitter @Kat_Armey and Genetics Unzipped @geneticsunzip
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