EP 162: The genetics of isolated communities with Professor Jim Wilson of the University of Edinburgh

Show Notes:
0:00 Intro to The Genetics Podcast

01:00 Welcome to Jim

01:40 The most impactful discoveries of Jim’s work across more than 25 Scottish islands as part of the Viking Genes project

05:00 The increased prevalence of BRCA mutations and founder effects in specific island populations

07:45 Population sizes on the islands Jim studies

09:01 Islander screening today, how Jim and his team are taking genetic screening programs forward, and the impact of founder effects on population health

13:00 Raising awareness of the importance of genetic screening within isolated populations

14:50 How the Jewish community is at the forefront of screening for populations at increased risk of specific genetic conditions

17:19 Factors that cause delays in implementation of screening for at-risk populations

20:29 Mapping Prince William’s mitochondrial DNA and working with Westminster to raise awareness of genetic screening

23:07 Shared ancestries and the deep interconnections within our DNA, revealing how populations are far more intertwined than we often realize.

25:43 Key actionable findings from Jim’s work with isolated Scottish communities (Find the link to the paper below)


29:10 Current knowledge and understanding of global isolated communities

31:27 How the majority of people want to receive genetic results and have knowledge of potential health impacts and actionable findings

33:03 Jim’s IFTA winning work with the Irish Traveller community

35:05 The power of genetics and screening to deliver preventative medicine and improved health outcomes for isolated communities.

39:18 Closing remarks


Find out more:
Viking Genes Project - http://viking.ed.ac.uk
Jim’s latest research papers - https://www.research.ed.ac.uk/en/persons/jim-wilson/publications/
Preprint: Identification of actionable genetic variants in 4,198 Scottish volunteers from the Viking Genes research cohort and implementation of return of results - https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.11.01.24316571v1