Latest / Polymath World Channel / Polymath World # Episode 19 - Dr Lindsey Compton

Transcript

Polymath World # Episode 19 - Dr Lindsey Compton · Polymath World Channel

• 0:01
  Hello and welcome to the Polymath World channel and we're talking more genetics today, which you can't blame me because I love it so much.
• 0:08
  And I'm here with a friend who I met several years ago at the Genetics Society Conference on the 200th anniversary of uh Gregor Mendel's birth.
• 0:16
  So it seems very fitting today that we're talking about plant genetics.
• 0:20
  I'm here with someone who really inspired my students as well.
• 0:23
  I'm here with Dr.
• 0:24
  Lindsay Compton from the University of Birmingham.
• 0:26
  Lindsay, thank you so much for joining me today.
• 0:28
  It's a pleasure to be here
• 0:31
  Thank you, it's always great to talk to you and I think your work is really, really inspiring and I think it will capture people's imagination quite a bit as well as to the
• 0:39
  power of genetics to really change and shape the worlds.
• 0:43
  But before we get into that, can you just tell us a bit about your background and how you got into genetics in the first place?
• 0:49
  Yeah, so I've always been a scientist at heart.
• 0:54
  So I did an undergraduate degree at University of Birmingham in biological sciences em and took all the genetics modules available to me.
• 1:03
  I became particularly interested in genetics.
• 1:05
  Just really fascinated with this idea that there is a code that underpins organisms characteristics and that minor changes like swapping one letter out for another in that
• 1:16
  code can cause.
• 1:17
  quite massive changes in terms of characteristics and I became fascinated with the molecular details of that, what's the rule, but for life really.
• 1:27
  So I did my undergraduate, probably enjoyed being at university far too much so I wanted to just stay.
• 1:33
  I went straight on to doing a PhD in Birmingham which was much easier back then to get a PhD than it is these days.
• 1:41
  So my personal tutor at university invited me to stay on and do a PhD.
• 1:45
  with him, which I did, so I began to specialise more in genetics during my PhD.
• 1:50
  So that was focused on developing statistical methods for making that link between the genome, the DNA and the observable traits of phenotypes of organisms.
• 2:02
  So it was very much a crash course in statistics and computer programming.
• 2:07
  It's very much a computational project.
• 2:09
  So that's how I got into genetics and then...
• 2:13
  Actually after my PhD I then went into teaching.
• 2:18
  What did you do your PhD on specifically?
• 2:21
  So I did my PhD on building methods for mapping quantitative traits.
• 2:27
  So quantitative trait locus or QTL mapping was the topic.
• 2:32
  So I was working with potato, which unlike species like ourselves, is actually tetraploid.
• 2:38
  So it has four copies of each chromosome rather than two.
• 2:43
  So that makes the genetics more complicated.
• 2:45
  So we were developing methods for the QTL analysis, which
• 2:49
  uh statistical methods that actually link genetic variation, variation of genome sequence with variation in traits.
• 2:57
  So uh I wrote some code to actually design a QTL mapping method that could accommodate the complexities that happen when you have four copies of each chromosome rather than two.
• 3:07
  It just creates a lot more possibilities for the genotype of organisms and makes that relationship between genotype and phenotype more complicated.
• 3:16
  So it's very much grounded in
• 3:19
  bioinformatics type work.
• 3:22
  There's already so many things there that I'd love to ask you about, which is terrific.
• 3:27
  before I forget, uh I've raised this with the genetic society before.
• 3:32
  Sometimes I wonder about young people's education.
• 3:35
  They're not being exposed to genetics enough.
• 3:38
  Because a lot of, most students, to be honest, that I come across who are doing biology at their A levels, they're heading towards medicine.
• 3:45
  And that's sort of what they want to do.
• 3:48
  So at what age did you really get exposed to genetics?
• 3:52
  Was it when you were in high school or did you come across it sort of in science communication or museums?
• 4:00
  For me it was A level biology.
• 4:03
  So after school I did em A levels em and in that biology A level there was quite, there was a fair bit of genetics but it just captured my interest so I knew that I wanted to
• 4:13
  study genetics more at that point and that's why I went to do biological sciences at university.
• 4:20
  Tough decision versus the other sciences but for me wanting to know more about genetics sparked that so like you said there may not be that much.
• 4:30
  or a knowledge of genetics at that level em and there tends to be a focus on human health and disease and I think that continues as well and it really shapes what people want to do
• 4:43
  so em our undergraduates and post-graduates who join us to do bioinformatics as an example often come in with very much this idea that I'm interested in cancer and human health and
• 4:55
  disease and not so much in the...
• 4:57
  the really broad applications of genetics, particularly plant science, and I think that that bias happens very early and it's something that work has been done to try to make the
• 5:07
  curriculum more engaging and have more genetics in it from school onwards, but it's an ongoing thing that we face.
• 5:14
  Yeah, and at what point did plants really take over for you then?
• 5:18
  Because when I saw that plants were polyploidy and that you're dealing with not two chromosomes but four and sometimes more, I ran a mile.
• 5:27
  I was absolutely terrified.
• 5:29
  That was very intimidating.
• 5:30
  So what was it that really switched you onto plants?
• 5:35
  I'd like to say that I was absolutely fascinated by plants and I used to grow my own crops and everything but honestly it isn't the case.
• 5:42
  In my career I think personal connection is what has really driven the way that I went.
• 5:48
  It always has been so many examples so when I finished my undergraduate degree I was just still interested in everything at that point.
• 5:57
  I have to say plant science had not particularly captured my attention.
• 6:01
  during my undergraduate degree at all, so I can't say I'm a crazy plant person at all.
• 6:07
  But I just through the connection that I had with the staff on the course, particularly my personal tutor, I wanted to carry on working in the team that I was working in.
• 6:18
  happened that they were working on plant science, and so I got into plant-related genetics, but it wasn't really intentionally.
• 6:25
  I'm very much choose people rather than projects, you know?
• 6:30
  A personal thing that I love about meeting scientists in the life sciences who are doing different things from me is their particular passion for their model organisms.
• 6:41
  you know, have one of my best friends is just obsessed with microbes.
• 6:45
  He's like, Sam, don't waste your time with humans.
• 6:48
  They're boring.
• 6:49
  You know, get into microbes.
• 6:50
  I have a friend who's deeply passionate about mosquitoes who are a model organism, and I'll never understand that one in particular.
• 6:58
  But when I first met you, you were so um enthusiastic about the potential of potatoes and what you could do with it.
• 7:07
  it really left a mark.
• 7:09
  I was quite amazed by it.
• 7:10
  So could you tell us a little bit about what it is to work with potatoes as a scientist?
• 7:17
  Yeah, so as I mentioned, I didn't particularly want to go and work on plants, you know, once I choose to get my teeth into something, I do get very excited about it.
• 7:26
  And actually, I realised when I started my PhD and since then just how exciting plant science is.
• 7:32
  uh Coming back to the point we were talking about earlier, really, that actually lot of students don't realise that until sometimes it's too late because at school you're not
• 7:42
  really exposed to how exciting plant science really is.
• 7:46
  But I was lucky to get into it through my PhD.
• 7:49
  think plant science is a very exciting area to be in, particularly in the UK.
• 7:57
  The UK is really at the forefront of crop genetics and crop breeding.
• 8:02
  Particularly with a few years ago, there was a Precision Breeding Act, which has enabled the use of modern technologies for breeding better crops that was being approved in
• 8:11
  England and Wales.
• 8:12
  And so that's opened up.
• 8:13
  a lot of doors for really exploiting the potential of genetics to improve plants and improve crops.
• 8:21
  So it's an exciting time because many people, obviously human health and disease, coming back to that again uh is really, really important.
• 8:30
  We want less people to suffer from cancer and to die of cancer every year, but really having enough food to feed the human population, enough safe and healthy food.
• 8:41
  is really the biggest challenge that we're facing as a species and if we don't address this then we really are in big trouble.
• 8:48
  So I remember when I came to give the talk in schools that you invited me to I showed a slide where there was something like nine billion deaths globally from cancer every year
• 8:59
  and it's a shocking statistic and it's something that matters to everybody but not many people realise that the number is much greater for the people who actually die of
• 9:07
  starvation.
• 9:09
  every year so we really need to prioritise researching plants so that we can actually grow enough food to stay alive as a species.
• 9:17
  It really is, it sounds dramatic but that's the situation we're in at the moment, especially with climate change because the crops that we have been growing for many years,
• 9:26
  whether it be potato or other crops, may not be well adapted to how quickly the climate is changing as well so the time is really...
• 9:35
  are really now to start applying the things that we know about genetics to breed better crops.
• 9:42
  Yeah, your work is so amazing and it's so easy for people to see the potential and the scope of application for what you do.
• 9:49
  And a lot of what you've just said, the general public won't really be aware of.
• 9:54
  And that's often the case with genetics, that the general public doesn't understand just how far along things are.
• 10:01
  Now, em how many different types of potatoes are there and why potatoes particularly good?
• 10:09
  There are many thousands of different varieties of potatoes that we tend to see in the supermarket.
• 10:14
  see the same old varieties, maybe four or five varieties available like Maris Piper and other names that people might have seen.
• 10:21
  But that's just a really small set of varieties that are sold in the supermarket.
• 10:27
  There's many varieties, particularly in countries like Peru, which is the center of origin of the species.
• 10:33
  And they don't necessarily look anything like the potatoes that we're familiar with.
• 10:38
  genetically and phenotypically they're really really diverse, different colours, shapes and sizes, you put them all together into a picture, it's beautiful, the diversity of
• 10:49
  different potato varieties which have different properties, they taste different, look different, they cook differently, everything, but it's the same with many crops that would
• 10:57
  just have a very narrow set of varieties that are available to consumers, but actually there's many more varieties out there.
• 11:06
  working with potato as a crop.
• 11:10
  is it important?
• 11:11
  It is one of the most important food crops globally and one of the reasons for that is because unlike crops like rice it's really nutritionally dense so there's a lot of
• 11:19
  vitamins and minerals in potato and you can survive just eating potato for a very long time compared to eating rice because it's got a lot more nutritional value and it can
• 11:30
  actually be grown in a lot of different environments as well.
• 11:32
  It's quite adaptable as a crop so
• 11:35
  It's been described as a climate smart option or really a crop for the future.
• 11:41
  So we should be investing more in actually making the use of the diversity of different varieties available em and breeding better varieties that will adapt to what we have with
• 11:54
  climate change.
• 11:56
  You mentioned Peru there and your work has had quite a lot of crossover with South America.
• 12:02
  Could you tell us a bit about what that looks like and how that works?
• 12:06
  Yeah, so I had a PhD student work with me recently who was actually from Peru and was very interested in em working on potatoes.
• 12:17
  So one of the things we did was actually to look at what we normally work with actually is a European panel of varieties, which are nothing like the varieties from Peru.
• 12:27
  So the genetic, the pool that you have is quite different.
• 12:31
  So m through the connection with her and through colleagues in Peru, we work with some varieties.
• 12:36
  that were very drought tolerant as an example of a trait that we want to build into potato is to enable it to be more drought tolerant, particularly because potato has a very
• 12:45
  shallow root system so it can be really susceptible to drought and that can massively reduce the yield.
• 12:52
  So we wanted to understand how those varieties are so resistant.
• 12:56
  em So we did some sequencing work to try to understand how the genes are expressed em in those varieties.
• 13:05
  comparing one that's really drought tolerant and one that's not.
• 13:09
  And identified different candidate genes that can actually explain the drought tolerance of those varieties.
• 13:15
  And I think that kind of work is quite important because we often work with a small panel of varieties that are UK or European, but we don't capture the global genetic diversity.
• 13:27
  So that's what we were trying to do in that project is to understand how the traits are controlled in those varieties that are.
• 13:35
  um and to the stress and how can we bring those characteristics into the varieties that we use in the UK or Europe.
• 13:43
  Yes, and I remember seeing the picture of all the different types of potatoes, particularly those in South America, thinking that looks nothing like a potato that I
• 13:51
  know.
• 13:52
  There is an extraordinary amount of diversity there.
• 13:55
  So how can a geneticist like yourself harvest this diversity to really solve something like wild hunger?
• 14:05
  What are the tools of the trade and what are the potential applications?
• 14:10
  Yeah, oh always what we're trying to do is to find out what is the genetic change that confers the useful trait like drought tolerance or resistance to particular disease and
• 14:23
  it's never going to be just one genetic change but if we can identify something that has high importance towards the drought tolerance or other traits um we can then actually
• 14:33
  introduce that trait or that genetic change into the varieties that we use in the UK.
• 14:39
  So there's different ways that we can do that.
• 14:43
  So we can use traditional breeding or we can use more modern methods of gene editing, which as I alluded to earlier, the legal act that actually allows us to use gene editing
• 14:54
  approaches in the UK was approved and passed in Parliament in 2023, which puts us in a really exciting place in terms of plant research in the UK because we can use precision
• 15:05
  technologies to actually change the...
• 15:08
  genetic profile of a potato variety and see if it has the intended effect on the phenotype.
• 15:13
  So if we know what the change is in terms of the sequence, we can edit the genome so it has that sequence and then test it in different environments and see if it does confer an
• 15:24
  improvement in the trait.
• 15:28
  So the advantage of the precision breeding or gene editing, it's the same thing really, is that it's much, much faster than...
• 15:35
  crossing together different varieties and raising the offspring.
• 15:38
  It can take 10 years to create a new variety of potato or other crops by using crosses.
• 15:45
  But actually with the gene editing technologies, it can be done quite quickly um in the lab.
• 15:51
  So I haven't actually done any gene editing with myself, but obviously it's something that I keep abreast of because it's very relevant to my own research.
• 16:00
  Yes, a lot of people have heard of CRISPR, the Nobel Prize awarded for it 2020, I think.
• 16:08
  And you also have prime editing and base editing now as well, incredible technologies.
• 16:13
  And you mentioned there that that can accelerate the process rather than just...
• 16:18
  So are we talking about sort of hybrid potatoes taking the best of what's in one part of the world or one species and sort of crossing it?
• 16:28
  with another to sort of make something that's bigger, better, more nutritious.
• 16:33
  Yeah, exactly that.
• 16:35
  So you're trying to identify regions of the genome that can further advantageous trait or boost that trait in some way and to introduce it.
• 16:43
  And they're very much the quickest way to do that is to use some form of gene editing.
• 16:47
  And like I said, I haven't actually done gene editing in the lab myself, but the technologies to actually do it keep advancing really, really quickly.
• 16:55
  And it's a challenge as a scientist to keep pace with exactly the different technologies and the different methods.
• 17:00
  But what they all have in common is that they're
• 17:03
  precisely introducing a change and by definition it should be a change that could have happened naturally, it's just that as we were saying at the beginning we don't have the
• 17:13
  time to wait.
• 17:14
  You know as a species we need the better crops and we needed them years ago, we need them today, okay, so we can't wait 10 years for that change to happen naturally, we needed a
• 17:23
  way to actually make that change happen in the lab and now it's possible, there's lots of different examples at different plant breeding institutes and...
• 17:33
  universities have done to create varieties and new varieties.
• 17:37
  it's basically the same variety but just boosted by making one or more genetic changes.
• 17:43
  So some of those changes might improve the nutritional profile of the crop.
• 17:49
  So tomatoes have been made that produce more vitamin D as an example to make them better quality.
• 17:55
  Some changes are in terms of the bigger food security picture isn't it about.
• 18:00
  just having more food, actually reducing foods wastage is a major problem.
• 18:05
  So bananas have been genetically edited so that they don't turn brown.
• 18:09
  So a huge amount of waste is generated through that pathway.
• 18:12
  em And similarly, food has to be safe, of course, as well as nutritionally high quality.
• 18:20
  So a recent example of that is where bread wheat has been engineered to have less asparagine, which is an amino acid in the grains.
• 18:29
  That's important because during cooking it can lead to acrylamide formation which is toxic.
• 18:35
  So by genetically engineering the wheat they just have slightly less of this amino acid.
• 18:40
  It's not having any detrimental effects on any other traits but it's reducing toxic compounds when you cook em the crop.
• 18:48
  So there's loads of different examples like that of where gene editing has been applied to produce a better quality or safer crop.
• 18:57
  That's amazing.
• 18:58
  That's absolutely extraordinary.
• 18:59
  And again, most of the public won't have heard of that.
• 19:02
  They might have heard of golden rice.
• 19:04
  suppose golden rice is the really famous one.
• 19:06
  you know, Nobel Prize has been awarded for this in the 20th century for just the increasing the productivity.
• 19:15
  But golden rice is who knows how many lives that's saved.
• 19:20
  Now, you mentioned climate being a big challenge here to crop production.
• 19:27
  And when you're trying to enhance potatoes so that they are more drought resistant, more heat resistant, more resistant to pests, uh are you occasionally needing to take genes or
• 19:42
  genomic information from other species or sort of other organisms?
• 19:49
  em Yeah, yeah, so often that is the case.
• 19:53
  so em in the example of potatoes, because we know that there's a huge diversity em in Peru as an example, they're going to be growing in very different conditions to the conditions
• 20:05
  that we grow them in the UK.
• 20:07
  em So actually understanding what makes, if you already have some of those crops growing at higher temperatures m and you can find out what
• 20:17
  what leads to that tolerance trait, then you can introduce that to varieties which are typically grown at lower temperatures.
• 20:23
  em It's the same with forest trees as well as another example, not just crops.
• 20:29
  So there's a lot of reforestation and new woodlands being planted in the UK to try and combat climate change.
• 20:35
  em But it's not a good to just plant the same varieties that we've always had historically.
• 20:42
  So em one approach would be to actually look at
• 20:46
  countries further south where the trees are actually adapted to higher temperatures and bring that kind of genetic varieties to the UK because then the tree that you plant today
• 20:59
  will actually be able to survive the conditions that it will be in in 10, 20, 30 years time.
• 21:05
  So there's plenty of examples of that where you use existing material from different places that already have some of the traits that you're interested in.
• 21:17
  That's fantastic.
• 21:19
  Potatoes are obviously very, very hardy.
• 21:21
  They've been around for hundreds and hundreds of millions of years, I'm sure.
• 21:26
  one of my favorite films and books is The Martian, where Matt Damon grows potatoes on Mars to help him survive.
• 21:36
  In real world applications, we've seen people grow Arabidopsis in lunar soil, lunar regolith.
• 21:44
  Why potatoes?
• 21:45
  Potatoes have got to be one of those top 5, top 10 food groups.
• 21:51
  But what is it about potatoes in particular that is so helpful for us?
• 21:58
  I'd say that the adaptability of the crop, um already even without breeding more varieties, it can be grown in much more diverse range of conditions, so temperature,
• 22:11
  amount of water, all the different factors that affect plant growth compared to other crops like rice, it is much more highly adaptable, so it can be grown in a much more
• 22:21
  diverse range of environments.
• 22:23
  So in that sense with climate change not just beans.
• 22:27
  directional change but it's more, there's greater fluctuation in conditions than ever before then it's probably one of the best options for being a climate smart crop even
• 22:37
  without the genetic work that we're talking about.
• 22:42
  Not to mention also we talked about before it's just very nutritionally dense as a crop so for a small amount of food you just get more nutrition which is obviously good in terms of
• 22:53
  feeding the...
• 22:55
  population and having enough nutrients to be healthy.
• 22:59
  Yeah, terrific.
• 23:00
  I don't know how we'd do without chips as well.
• 23:02
  Certainly not in Britain or in the West.
• 23:06
  But you mentioned earlier computational methods and bioinformatics, sort of the marriage of biology and computer science being part of your job.
• 23:16
  Could you explain some of that and what that looks like and how you can harness that for your work?
• 23:23
  Yes, so my job is partly research but also a large part teaching as well.
• 23:28
  So we have a master's programme in bioinformatics at the University of Birmingham that I lead and that really we always like to describe bioinformatics as being data science for
• 23:41
  the life sciences and that might sound incredibly broad but that's because it literally is.
• 23:46
  So you're applying data science techniques of analysing data to any kind of
• 23:52
  biology related data set.
• 23:55
  So the types of problems that you can be tackling really, really, really broad, ranging from the health of forest trees through to human cancers.
• 24:04
  em so em on that program, we try to expose students to the full power of bioinformatics to address different things, whether it be a human cancer and understanding the evolution of
• 24:17
  tumors to through to actually the types of
• 24:20
  plant science research that we've been talking about or other environmental research, research in psychology, lots of disciplines that interact with bioinformatics.
• 24:30
  So it's really about making sure people have the skills to do computer programming on one hand, but also to understand the different types of analysis that you can apply to data
• 24:42
  and choose the right kind of analysis to pull something out that's biologically meaningful because...
• 24:49
  As you probably already know, the bottleneck in modern biosciences is not so much about generating the data, but about actually having the people who have the right skills to
• 24:58
  analyse that data, to know what to do with it and be able to make meaningful conclusions from that data.
• 25:05
  So that's what the bioinformatics is all about, is building the next generation of skilled scientists who can analyse the exploding amounts of data in biology.
• 25:16
  So it's an exciting program to run, an exciting field to work in.
• 25:20
  you look at, I saw a chart the other day which was plotting the number of published research papers that are related to bioinformatics and they literally just goes up and up
• 25:30
  and off every year over the past 20 years.
• 25:32
  So it's, we always said it's a rapidly growing field and it feels a bit old now, but we keep saying it because it literally is true, but the bioinformatics is really, we think of
• 25:41
  it as the future of biosciences because even.
• 25:45
  even if you would prefer as a scientist to stay in the wet lab and not do the data analysis and the bioinformatics side of things increasingly, that's becoming more
• 25:54
  difficult to stay doing that without engaging in the bioinformatics.
• 25:59
  So it's an exciting area to be part of and to teach as well.
• 26:06
  It's a great career to be getting into for young people and for students and there's, you're right, there's certainly no shortage of need there at all.
• 26:13
  How does sort of model building or the data analysis side of things inform sort of potential therapeutic targets or sites of interest?
• 26:22
  What does that look like?
• 26:24
  So in a project for, let's say, trying to understand the genetic differences between tumour tissue and healthy tissue, that's quite a common type of project that we have
• 26:39
  people offer to our bioinformatics students where they're looking at, say, breast cancer or a different type of cancer, and they compare the genetic profile of normal tissue to
• 26:48
  diseased tissue to try to understand where the differences are.
• 26:53
  what's happening within the tumour in terms of the way that genes are expressed.
• 26:57
  For example, that's different to the healthy tissue.
• 27:01
  So lots of different levels of biology can be targeted.
• 27:05
  So you can look at things at the DNA level, or you can look at things at the transcriptome level and look at the expression of genes genome-wide.
• 27:14
  You can also look at epigenetics as well.
• 27:17
  um commonly the methylation profile of the genes across the genome in the tumour versus healthy tissue.
• 27:24
  And there are other levels as well that we can look at like metabolomics as well.
• 27:29
  So how does the profile of metabolites, small molecules inside the different tissues differ?
• 27:36
  And similarly we can do proteomics to focus on proteins.
• 27:39
  What's the different proteins that present in the tissue and how abundant they are in different types of tissue.
• 27:45
  In bioinformatics, you can look at things on many different levels and you might, you'd be applying types of data analysis that are specific to that type of data em or you can
• 27:58
  rather than focus on one level, you can collect data across multiple levels.
• 28:02
  Then you have the challenge of integrating the information that you get from the gene expression profile, the protein profile, the metabolite profile into
• 28:13
  more of a holistic story as to what's going on.
• 28:17
  So the data sets can become quite big and quite complicated, but essentially if you can identify something that's dysregulated in the tumour condition versus normal, for example,
• 28:30
  consistently in a cohort of patients, then you can potentially develop treatments that would target that particular gene and the way it's expressed as an example, as a form of
• 28:41
  targeted treatment.
• 28:43
  Different people in the population may have different underlying mechanisms in their cancer so you can personalise the treatment according to the genetic profile of that
• 28:54
  individual.
• 28:55
  And I do think that's important.
• 28:57
  It's not my research field but I have sort of stayed abreast of the literature and I know there's examples where uh if a method, it's important to know the genetic profile of
• 29:10
  individuals in order to tailor the treatment so.
• 29:13
  A lot of methods have been developed from white populations as an example and different global populations and ethnic minorities are really underrepresented in general in this
• 29:23
  kind of em human health and disease research and although that's changing I have seen examples where if you take a treatment that's developed based on genetic profile of white
• 29:34
  people and then you apply it to a population with a very different genetic profile it doesn't necessarily not work it can actually have detrimental impact as well.
• 29:43
  So it can actually lead to worse health, which is opposite to what you're trying to achieve.
• 29:49
  So there's a lot of exciting things that can be done, but there's equality, diversity and inclusion issues as well in human genetic research in terms of what populations get
• 29:59
  prioritised for understanding the genetic basis of disease and making sure that you, there are, there's a...
• 30:08
  understanding that you can't just apply a solution that's developed with one kind of population geographically and apply it to everyone as well.
• 30:17
  That's amazing.
• 30:19
  There's so much there we could get into.
• 30:21
  I'm so excited about how bioinformatics can shape the future.
• 30:24
  And um yeah, I encourage students as well towards your master's program because people can get into bioinformatics from a biology background or a computer science background.
• 30:35
  it's an exciting world.
• 30:37
  um I'd love to give you the floor here to paint uh a vision of the future in terms of how
• 30:45
  Genetics can change world hunger and starvation.
• 30:50
  What does that look like in terms of what are the best possibilities and what are you really hopeful for?
• 30:58
  Yeah, so I think um the best possibility of using genetics to breed bretta varieties of crops that will be um useful in a rapidly changing climate to feed the future growing
• 31:13
  population.
• 31:15
  The best approaches are a combination of the classic ways of understanding what genetic changes link to what traits.
• 31:22
  So we can do um QTL mapping approaches that I mentioned earlier or
• 31:27
  genome-wide association studies where you take a big panel of genetic varieties, like a panel of 300 potato varieties that we work with.
• 31:37
  You collect data on the phenotypes that you're interested in, and then we use statistical methods to bridge the genotype and phenotype and find out what are the genetic changes
• 31:47
  that underpin the traits.
• 31:50
  So I think we can use the classic methods to find the genetic variants that we're interested in.
• 31:57
  But I think when it comes to plant breeding, the future has to embrace gene editing approaches because, as we were saying earlier, classic breeding and crossing together
• 32:09
  varieties and selecting the ones that you want from the offspring is intensive, it's laborious, it takes too long.
• 32:14
  And if we really want to address the need to create the better varieties sooner, we have to embrace the modern technologies.
• 32:22
  So think the way forward is for us.
• 32:25
  scientists in the UK to make the most of being in a good position where there's already been an act of the Precision Breeding Act supporting the use of these technologies.
• 32:35
  We have to make the most of that in the coming years to stay at the forefront of genetics and genomic research in plants and actually produce those varieties in good time really.
• 32:46
  It's very exciting.
• 32:48
  Genetic engineering is, we're in a crisper world now, is how I put it to people.
• 32:54
  know, everything before 2011 is a very different world now.
• 32:59
  Yeah, think there's a parallelism there with artificial intelligence and there's still people who want to using it or resist embracing it.
• 33:09
  For example, in our teaching we can say, it's banned and no one's allowed to use it.
• 33:14
  But in reality, we can't just naively do that.
• 33:17
  In reality, people can and will be using it.
• 33:20
  And we have to embrace it.
• 33:21
  We have to make use of it rather than be scared of it.
• 33:24
  And I think the parallel is with the genetic technologies as well.
• 33:27
  that is the world that we're living in and we have to embrace it to the extent that we can and not avoid what is very complicated.
• 33:36
  So the Genetic Technology Act, Precision Breeding Act as an example, there's a lot of complexity in terms of the way it needs to be regulated, the way it needs to be
• 33:48
  implemented so that it benefits society and it doesn't benefit some groups and not others.
• 33:54
  There's a lot of complexity in secondary legislation that is
• 33:57
  will need to come into play to support that but we mustn't shy away from that.
• 34:03
  We must actually embrace those technologies and put in place the things that are needed to get the most out of it and it's the same with GenAI I think.
• 34:12
  Yeah, I completely agree.
• 34:14
  And I think there's a snowball effect here which makes the biological sciences so exciting right now because AI has brought along things like AlphaFold.
• 34:22
  Obviously, bioinformatics and the marriage of computer science and the life sciences has brought about this data revolution, which has just given us so much more information to
• 34:33
  work with.
• 34:33
  But now we have the tools as well that have come along together in things like AlphaFold, which the Nobel Prize was awarded for last December.
• 34:42
  Yeah.
• 34:42
  things like CRISPR and now base editing and prime editing, you have so much more information and you have so much more powerful tools and they've all come at the same
• 34:50
  time, which has brought about, I think, the biggest revolution in biology since maybe the 1950s.
• 34:59
  So it's a very exciting time and we can think about what the future can be, but in many ways it's as big as our imagination.
• 35:08
  So I'm very glad we're...
• 35:12
  in the game and ahead of the game here in the UK.
• 35:15
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 35:16
  It's a very exciting time.
• 35:19
  I'd like to ask you uh as well about the Genetic Society.
• 35:24
  So the Genetic Society here in the UK has got a journal associated with it called Heredity, which is a fantastic journal.
• 35:33
  And you've been on the board.
• 35:35
  So could you tell us a little bit about the Genetic Society, what it does and why it's great?
• 35:41
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 35:42
  So yeah, I have been on the Committee of Genetic Society for some years.
• 35:46
  The society attempts to bring together the community of geneticists in the UK and support that community in the ways that it can.
• 35:53
  So we have uh a couple of conferences each year in the spring and the autumn on different topics, very broadly related to the broad applications of genetics that we've been talking
• 36:05
  about.
• 36:05
  uh We also have uh
• 36:08
  grants that people can apply for, for example field work grants to support students to come and work with academics in summer, for example, to do an eight-week summer research
• 36:17
  project, fully funded.
• 36:20
  We have different workshops as well to support students, for example, in terms of communicating their science, which is really important, skill as well as being able to do
• 36:31
  the science itself.
• 36:33
  So we have things like that that we encourage people to get involved in.
• 36:38
  at all levels and the Society's journal as well, Heredity, also publishes up-to-date research in genetics and really supports younger researchers as well, which is nice.
• 36:50
  So whenever em we have em conferences in genetic society in general, we do have a lot of support for early career researchers, but the Genetics Society journal, Heredity, we also
• 37:02
  have m prizes like, for example, the best student paper.
• 37:07
  of the year and things like that that really encourage the participation of the next generation and recognition of what people have achieved as well and various prizes to
• 37:18
  recognise achievement at different levels as well.
• 37:20
  So one of them for example is the Kenneth Mather Memorial Prize in quantitative genetics.
• 37:27
  So there's lots of different prizes that people can nominate their students for to get people the reward and recognition.
• 37:34
  So all of that is done through the
• 37:36
  Genetic Society so it's really good to be involved in it and as a student membership is very cheap as well.
• 37:42
  Off the top of my head it's only five or ten pounds a year and you get a quarterly Genetic Society magazine as well which is really engaging, accessible content em and I think from
• 37:53
  my perspective one of the hardest things is always keeping up to date with how fast things change and the research that people are doing even within your own field.
• 38:01
  let alone knowing what's going on elsewhere.
• 38:03
  So Genetic Society magazine is quite nice for that because you can get an idea of really the amazing diversity of things that people are working on.
• 38:11
  So I can zoom out and stop thinking about potatoes and think about the patterning of the colours on butterfly wings or whatever it is that people are working on.
• 38:19
  It's really fascinating.
• 38:20
  So for me, the Genetic Society provides that kind of um continuing professional development as well.
• 38:27
  So you don't just stay narrowly focused on your own field.
• 38:31
  Yes, it's so encouraging and the conferences and the gatherings are a great place to network and meet other people who are involved in areas close to or that can cross over
• 38:41
  with your research.
• 38:42
  And I just always found it tremendously encouraging as a student as well.
• 38:46
  And the conference this year, I encourage people to check it out.
• 38:49
  have Svante Paavo speaking, who won the Nobel Prize for sequencing the Neanderthal genomes.
• 38:54
  That's going to be very, very interesting.
• 38:57
  And it's a fantastic way to help your career but also stay in touch with what's going on everywhere.
• 39:04
  em What advice would you give to a young Lindsay Compton or students out there who are looking to get into genetics?
• 39:14
  What sort of routes should they go?
• 39:16
  What should they look out for?
• 39:18
  What should they study at school?
• 39:19
  How can people get into genetics and plant genetics in particular?
• 39:25
  em It's a really good question, let me think about this one.
• 39:28
  em
• 39:34
  So I think the most important thing, and I wish I'd have known this when I was younger, is just to talk to as many people as possible.
• 39:43
  So I was too terribly painfully shy to do that as a youngster.
• 39:47
  Even now I find conferences quite intimidating, but I think the more you can try to do that from a young age, that's how you find out what opportunities are available.
• 39:56
  So know the things that I've got involved in and not normally necessarily things I've ever actively pursued, but it's the people you know who say,
• 40:04
  hey come and do this, that's think having building your professional network earlier.
• 40:09
  In genetics or any other field I think that would be my biggest advice and to get out there and attend events like the Genetic Society conferences.
• 40:19
  or smaller workshops and symposiums just to get to know what people are working on and build your professional network really because I think that's how doors open usually
• 40:28
  rather than for me at least that's how it's happened in my life rather than me searching for an opportunity out of the blue things have come about because of someone I happen to
• 40:38
  know so that'll probably be my best advice is to before it force your I would like to force my earlier very shy self out of her comfort zone into the community of scientists
• 40:49
  Thanks
• 40:50
  Yeah, that's great advice, definitely.
• 40:52
  And for students who are watching and following this as well, just stay curious and keep in touch with the sciences.
• 41:02
  I think in genetics as well, don't panic if you're not amazing at maths.
• 41:07
  There's still a place for you in genetics.
• 41:09
  There's still a place for you in science.
• 41:12
  But stay curious and stay interested.
• 41:15
  Thanks so much for your time today, Lindsay.
• 41:16
  It's always a pleasure.
• 41:18
  um if people want to find out
• 41:19
  more about you in particular and your research on potatoes, where could they go?
• 41:25
  probably uh looking at my LinkedIn profile would be the best place to start.
• 41:31
  Terrific.
• 41:32
  Thank you.
• 41:33
  Look forward to seeing you at the conference if you're there and thanks so much for your time today.
• 41:37
  Thank you, great to chat with you about science.
• 41:39
  Thank you.