The Genetics Podcast Sano Genetics

This week, we welcome Michelle Werner, CEO of Alltrna and CEO/Partner at Flagship Pioneering. Michelle and her team are working at the cutting-edge of tRNA therapies, which they hope will present a scalable treatment method for people in the rare and ultra-rare disease communities.

Join Patrick and Michelle for an exciting conversation about this breakthrough technology, from the transferable potential of this new modality across stop codon diseases, to Michelle’s personal passion for delivering workable solutions to the rare disease community.

In this episode, we welcome Dr. Almut Heinken, Junior Professor at the INSERM Institute of Nutrition, Genetics, Environment, and Risk Exposure at Université de Lorraine. Her work focuses on multiscale metabolic modelling of host-microbiome interactions and their role in human health. She has contributed to the development of genome-scale reconstructions of human microbes, known as the AGORA resource. Almut has also developed tools to build personalised microbiome models and applied these models to inflammatory bowel disease, Parkinson’s Disease, and colorectal cancer. She is currently working on modelling the interactions between diet, the microbiome, and the epigenome. Tune in to this exciting discussion!

Join us in welcoming Mavis Machirori, Senior Researcher at the Ada Lovelace Institute and co-founder of Genetics Engage (https://www.geneticsengage.org/)! With over 10 years of clinical experience as a midwife, Mavis is dedicated to promoting social justice in healthcare. Her research focuses on the impact of new healthcare technologies on social inequalities. Passionate about equity in data and genomics, she addresses the broader societal impacts of these advancements. Mavis was a guest on our Participant Diversity webinar in 2020, and we are thrilled to have her back on The Genetics Podcast at Sano!

Join us in welcoming back a familiar voice, Allison Watson, to The Genetics Podcast. We first spoke to Allison on the podcast back in October 2019 about her work in ring chromosome 20 syndrome (also known as r(20) syndrome). Allison is the Co-founder and CEO of Ring 20 Research and Support UK CIO, a patient advocacy organisation focused on awareness and research for ultra rare r(20) syndrome epilepsy. Tune in as she tells us about developments in the advocacy space for r(20) syndrome over the past four years and landmark moments for research into the condition.v

Welcome to Episode 135 of The Genetics Podcast, where we welcome Dr. Ingrid Holm, an Associate in Medicine at Boston Children’s Hospital and a Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School. Ingrid is passionate about integrating newborn screening programs to healthcare systems. She was the co-investigator on the original BabySeq study and is now co-leading a new study — BabySeq2: Bringing equity to genomic sequencing in newborns. She also leads pioneering work in a range of other paediatric projects, all of which we discuss in this episode!

In episode 134, we welcome fellow genetics podcaster Kira Dineen. Kira is most widely known for her award winning podcast, DNA Today, as well as producing a number of other health and science podcasts. Now running for more than 10 years, DNA Today is the winner of the 2020, 2021, and 2022 Best Science and Medicine Podcast Awards. When not podcasting, Kira works as a Prenatal Genetic Counsellor at Maternal Foetal Care in Connecticut where she supports patients with high-risk pregnancies, and is a certified Cytogenetic Technologist. Tune in for a very interesting episode!