#540 Itai Yanai: The Society of Genes; Genome Evolution, Epigenetics, Health, and Gene Editing
RECORDED ON JULY 20th 2021.
Dr. Itai Yanai is Founding Director of the Institute for Computational Medicine at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine. He is also a Professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmacology at NYU. He does research on cancer, computational biology, developmental genetics, genomics, microbiome, systems biology, single-cell transcriptomics, gene expression atlas construction, genome evolution. He is the author of The Society of Genes.
In this episode, we focus on The Society of Genes. We first talk about the metaphor of the “selfish gene”. We ask if mutations really occur randomly. We get into the idea of “the society of genes”, and discuss how genes cooperate and compete with one another. We discuss pleiotropy and polygenic traits, and what they tell us about how genes work. We talk about the evolution of sex, and what we can learn about genetics by studying cancer. We discuss human genetic diversity, and how to deal with genetic ancestry in medicine. Finally, we talk about epigenetics, gene editing, and some unanswered questions in genetics.
Time Links:
Intro
Genome evolution, and the “selfish gene”
Are mutations random?
The society of genes
Pleiotropy and polygenic traits
The evolution of sex
Human genetic diversity
Gene editing
Epigenetics, and gene expression
Unanswered questions in genetics
Follow Dr. Yanai’s work!
Follow Dr. Yanai’s work:
University page: https://bit.ly/38ejpGC
Yanai Lab: https://bit.ly/3rgMJ8I
ResearchGate profile: https://bit.ly/2UkjGoz
The Night Science podcast: https://bit.ly/2V1JS7b
Amazon page: https://amzn.to/3hIZhSO
The Society of Genes: https://amzn.to/2LMKCIR
Twitter handle: @ItaiYanai