Peter Dearden
Cheesecake makes you fat, but correlation is not causation - Genomics Aotearoa
Mar 26, 2014 •
Julia Horsfield I was one of the happy people rejoicing in new gastronomic possibilities after hearing that eating saturated fats may not cause heart disease after all. Yay! I never could bring myself to opt for that trim latte. Maybe I can even ditch the Olivani in favour of butter. But, as my nutritional friends point out, it’s all how you look at the data. Unfortunately, we mustn’t get too excited, and the best dietary advice is still to stick with omega-3 polyunsaturated fats as part of a balanced diet. Fair enough, it’s hard not to agree. But I’m an experimental biologist, inordinately interested in the nuts and bolts of how things work. I like cause-and-effect, or as my sons would tell you, ‘consequences’. Stuff you can measure and be unequivocally convinced by. I’ve always been faintly uncomfortable … Read More
Meeting your heroes. - Genomics Aotearoa
Mar 12, 2014
They* say that you shouldn’t meet your heroes. Yesterday I had the opportunity to meet one of mine, Professor Lord Robert Winston, as he came to visit Genetics Otago for the day. Prof. Winston, as well as being a pioneer in science communication, is also a key figure in genetics, being part of the team that invented the technique of pre-implantation genetic diagnosis. Prof Winston came to talk to school kids, and he gave an inspiring address at Otago Boys’ to an audience of senior students from around Dunedin and Otago. He talked about the promise and dangers of science, and emphasised that scientific literacy is key to us extracting the good from science while avoiding the bad. Prof Winston also talked to our postgraduate (and a few undergraduate students), about his career and his thoughts on current issues … Read More
Why you should care about plasticity. - Genomics Aotearoa
Feb 26, 2014
Peter K. Dearden In my last post I mentioned I was interested in how you get changes in the shape of an animal without a change in genetics. This process is, of course, important for animals like bees, but it is also important in our own biology. In recent years evidence has been building that suggests that our early life environment, pre-natally and perhaps even around conception, has a huge influence on our later life and health. This idea mirrors the biology I study in bees, environmental influences affect the way genes work, leading to alternative forms, shaped or biology later in life. The field gives this phenomenon a name; developmental plasticity. During the early life of an animal, it is thought that environmental influences, the maternal environment even post natal care, all can set biological parameters that can then … Read More
Why I study Bees. - Genomics Aotearoa
Jan 13, 2014 •
Peter K. Dearden I was recently asked why I work on honeybees, especially given my growing intolerance to bee stings. There are lots of easy answers to this questions, including how cool they are, how important they are, how remarkable their biology is etc etc, but when it comes down to it, there is a real answer. So just to see how strange scientist’s career pathways can be, I want to tell you how I came to be a bee biologist. To find out, we have to go back 540 million years… If you are not a biologist, or even if you are, you might not have heard of the Cambrian explosion. This is a tragedy, because something remarkable happened, which echoes through evolutionary history. Geologists often divide up periods of geological history using key fossils as signatures of particular … Read More
Is your educational achievement determined by your genes? - Genomics Aotearoa
Jan 01, 2014 •
Peter K. Dearden I am loath to write this post, not only because it is New Year’s Day and I am in Melbourne, but also because the subject matter touches some raw nerves. The problem is I have been increasingly angry at the way genetics is beginning to be used to inform policy in education. Not so much here in New Zealand, but in the UK there are worrying signs that genetics is being used as an argument to de-invest in education. Given that NZ often follows the UK, I wanted to point out a few problems with what has been reported (for example here, here and here). The facts are that measures of ‘intelligence’ have been shown to be highly heritable. This is a difficult statement to make because it sums up a great deal of research … Read More
Working out what makes us human. - Genomics Aotearoa
Dec 20, 2013 •
Peter K. Dearden. One key question in biology is what makes us different as a species. Humans have a remarkable set of adaptations that distinguish us from even our closest living relatives. We walk upright, we have larger brains, we use language, and we are consummate tool-makers and users. From the point of view of an alien, perhaps, these differences may be subtle, but they are key to our spread around this planet, and the ability, for better or worse, to modify our environment. These differences must be encoded somewhere in our genes. Something about the way our DNA works, or is organised, must underpin these differences in our biology. Such differences are key targets for scientists seeking to understand the biology of our species. Before we sequenced the human genome, we thought that we probably had hundreds of thousands … Read More
AgResearch, Invermay and Genetics - Genomics Aotearoa
Nov 26, 2013
Peter K. Dearden The opinions below are my own, and not necessarily those of the University of Otago, my employer. You may be aware that AgResearch has decided to move its genetics/genomics team from Invermay near Dunedin, to Lincoln. This move has excited a great deal of attention in the Otago press, and some consternation around here. Genetics Otago has been drawn into this as a centre of research excellence and hub for genetics and genomics that AgResearch is linked into, that they will lose the benefit of if they move. This has led to some unfortunate exchanges in the media, so I thought I would write something from my point of view. AgResearch has had a long-term and excellent genetic/ genomics group at Invermay. Many of that group are members of Genetics Otago. Genetics Otago has over 200 … Read More
Finding future treatments for Cancer - Genomics Aotearoa
Sep 25, 2013 •
Dr Elizabeth Duncan Cancer. It is a small word, but one that has a big meaning for a lot of people. Most of us know someone who has had cancer, or are cancer survivors. As a geneticist I can sometimes have a dispassionate view of the world around me, but last night as Jessica Wapner read an excerpt from her book “The Philadelphia Chromosome” I almost cried. Jessica began her talk with a poignant tale of a man named Gary Eichner. Gary was diagnosed with chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) at the age of 43. CML causes the bone marrow to make too many white blood cells. If Gary had been diagnosed 20 years ago he would have had a poor prognosis, almost no chance of surviving 5 years. Now, thanks to a drug called Gleevec (and its derivatives), … Read More
Fork Futures - Genomics Aotearoa
Aug 06, 2013 •
Peter K. Dearden It is hard to avoid the news that last night, a beef burger grown in the lab was consumed by a number of people. The idea was that meat, grown in dishes in the lab, could replace meat grown in animals; last night was a demonstration of the principle. The beef burger in question was grown from muscle stem cells in plastic dishes, the cells collected and squished together to make a meat-like substance. Consumers of the burger made statements such as “lacked flavor” and “needed some fat”, not exactly a glowing endorsement, but perhaps no worse than most folk’s opinion of the ‘mechanically recovered meat’ often lurking in such burgers. The cost of this burger has been reported as 250,000 Euros ($425,000 NZ dollars), proving conclusively that growing meat in animals is still cheaper and more … Read More
Lethal doses and Bees - Genomics Aotearoa
Jul 30, 2013 •
Peter K. Dearden More bad news for bees this week. Honeybees around the world are struggling in the face of disease and insecticide threats. In New Zealand we have Varroa mite, that increases costs for beekeepers, destroys unmanaged beehives and vectors viruses, making them more virulent. Overseas, Colony Collapse Disorder and pesticide-threats are adding to the woes Varroa brings, meaning bee numbers appear to be declining. The loss of pollination capacity due to the loss of bees should be a big issue for all of us. In New Zealand, honeybees are estimated to support 35% of our primary sector, contributing $5.1 billion in export revenues (Laas, F., Foster, B. & Newstrom-Lloyd, L. Report to the Select Committee on Pollinator Security in New Zealand. (2011)). Beyond this, the pollination of the beans and fruit trees in your garden and parks, is … Read More