Talking Biotech Podcast Kevin M. Folta

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Penguins are charismatic, flightless, diving birds.  While typically associated only with Antarctica, their center of origin, radiation and speciation has been widely debated.  Dr. Juliana Vianna is part of an Antarctica Genomics Group at the Catholic University of Chile.  Her team has analyzed the genomes of penguins and compared it against other data, including the fossil record. They have provided new information to inform our understanding of the evolution and distribution of this interesting group of birds.

Follow Dr. Vianna on Twitter here.  @Ju_A_Vianna

Link to the paper in PNAS

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Most experts agree that the COVID19 pandemic will not end until a vaccine is available.  But traditionally, vaccines take a decade to develop and test.  The crisis has ignited efforts from over 130 companies, all racing to develop vaccines to render the population immune to the virus.  One exciting new development is the mRNA vaccine, a case where humans are injected with the genetic material of the virus, that ignites an immune response. The advantage of these vaccines is that they are easy to manufacture and quick to test. Boston Magazine Senior Editor Catherine Elton has followed the development of these vaccines, particularly from the company Moderna.  They moved from RNA sequence to human trials in only 43 days demonstrating the speed by which these new strategies may be employed.  We discuss the discoveries and the regulatory hurdles, along with public perception in what appears to be a rapid way to immunize large populations.

 

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A number of strange, devastating and lethal diseases are caused by prions. The most famous of these disorders in animals is Bovine Spongiform Encelapathy,  or “Mad Cow Disease”. Unlike other infectious agents like viruses, bacteria or fungi, prion-based diseases are caused by a misfolding of proteins resident in the body.  Essentially, this is your own chemistry turning against itself.  In this week’s podcast I speak with Dr. Cassandra Terry from London Metropolitan University.  She speaks about prion related diseases, their causes, and how what is learned from prions has illuminated an understanding of other complex neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson Disease.

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Male cattle (bulls) convert feed calories to weight gain more efficiently than females (cows). If more bulls could be put into beef production, the process would be even more sustainable. Dr. Alison Van Eenennaam and her research team attempted a clever trick to skew the ratio of males to females in cattle offspring.  Sex determination in mammals is driven mostly by a single gene on the Y chromosome. So what if this gene was duplicated elsewhere in the genome?  Using CRISPR gene editing, this is exactly what they did.  “Cosmo” the bull should produce 75% male offspring. Dr. Van Eenennaam talks about the gene, its  mechanism of action, the process of editing a bull’s genome, and the regulatory climate around gene-edited beef.

Dr. Van Eenennaam on Twitter:  @Biobeef

Dr. Van Eenennaam’s website here.

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In 2001 the Earth Liberation Front bombed the office of Dr. Toby Bradshaw at the University of Washington.  The damage was massive, especially toward non-targeted labs.  This is a great story of how misguided activism can have damaging collateral effects, and work against the efforts of scientists that are performing great work for people and a planet.

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Most organisms on earth evolved under constant intervals of light and darkness. The regular intervals led to the evolution of internal clocks that are trained by the light/dark patterns, and condition responses from gene expression to higher physiology and morphology.  Dr. Eva Farre of Michigan State University has a notable career in circadian rhythm research in plants. Today she joins the podcast to discuss the value of an internal oscillator to fitness, trait presentation and domestication. We also discuss the fundamental nature of chemistry that controls timing. Co-hosted by Michigan State University graduate student Miles Roberts.