Not All Genes are Equal (Pint of Science)

Every person has two copies of each gene, one inherited from each parent. Most genes are the same in all people, but a small number of them are slightly different. These tiny differences contribute to each person’s unique physical features.

Let’s explore rare imprinted genes, a special class where one parental copy is switched off,  and the life long impact that can have, and consider what happens when your genes make you slightly more hungry all of the time.

Is obesity a choice? Led by Dr Giles Yeo

It is clear that the cause of obesity is a result of eating more than you burn. It is physics. What is more complex to answer is why some people eat more than others? Differences in our genetic make-up mean some of us are slightly more hungry all the time and so eat more than others. In contrast to the prevailing view, obesity is not a choice. People with obesity are not bad or lazy; rather, they are fighting their biology.

A genetic battle of the sexes and rare imprinting disorders.  Led by Dr Miguel Constância

Imprinted genes are a special class of genes because one of the two parental copies is silenced by epigenetic mechanisms during development. These genes have key roles in how we acquire resources in the womb and throughout life.
Unlike genetic changes, epigenetic changes are reversible and do not change your DNA sequence, but they can change how your body reads a DNA sequence.
In this talk we’ll explore what happens when the only active copy of imprinted genes is deleted, mutated or silenced due to epigenetics and what happens if the silent copy of imprinted genes becomes activated.