How racial bias is messing with DNA research
The Europeans | European news, politics and culture
Katy Lee and Dominic Kraemer
4.8 • 162 Ratings
🗓️ 20 April 2023
⏱️ 40 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Mapping our genes has already allowed humanity to make huge strides in medicine. But the vast majority of the genomes we’ve decoded are those of people of white European heritage. Why is that a problem, and how do we fix it? This week we talk to the Nigerian geneticist Segun Fatumo about fixing the genome gap. We’re also talking about Andalucía’s bid to protect flamenco, and why Europe’s most powerful media mogul is in hot water.
Segun is an associate professor of genetic epidemiology and bioinformatics at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. He tweets @SFatumo.
You can find a video of flamenco performers celebrating Andalucía’s new law here, and watch the latest visual podcast in our series with Are We Europe, 'Andrea', here. We are delighted that the visual version of an earlier episode of This Is What A Generation Sounds Like, 'Mohamed', has been nominated for the CIVIS Prize! Watch it here.
This week's Isolation Inspiration: this interview on the European Space Agency's Jupiter mission; How To Sell Drugs Online (Fast); World Leader or My Friend's Dad? and Luis Sal's Parisian croissant review.
Thanks for listening! If you enjoy our podcast and would like to help us keep making it, we'd love it if you'd consider chipping in a few bucks a month at patreon.com/europeanspodcast (many currencies are available). You can also help new listeners find the show by leaving us a review or giving us five stars on Spotify.
FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT HERE: https://europeanspodcast.com/episodes/how-racial-bias-is-messing-with-dna-research
00:22 Make Europe Digestible Again
02:23 A Good Week for protecting flamenco?
09:22 A Bad Week for Axel Springer's CEO
19:30 Interview: Segun Fatumo on the European bias of genomic studies
30:24 Isolation Inspiration: Juice, 'How to Sell Drugs Online (Fast)', World Leader or My Friend's Dad, croissant reviews
34:59 Happy Ending: 500 days of reading and knitting (in a pitch-black cave)
Producers: Katy Lee and Wojciech Oleksiak
Mixing and mastering: Wojciech Oleksiak
Music: Jim Barne and Mariska Martina
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome back to the Europeans. |
| 0:24.1 | Your weekly dose of stuff that happened around Europe delivered in a digestible way. |
| 0:30.3 | That makes it sound like one of those yoghuts that's good for a healthy gut. |
| 0:34.8 | It sounded like you were auditioning to do an advert for Marks and Spencers. |
| 0:38.3 | This isn't just any podcast. |
| 0:40.0 | This is the Europeans podcast. |
| 0:42.2 | How are you doing, Dominic? |
| 0:43.1 | What's happening in Amsterdam? |
| 0:44.3 | Yeah, I'm fine. |
| 0:46.3 | It's sunny. |
| 0:47.4 | All is good here. |
| 0:48.9 | Life is fine. |
| 0:50.1 | Oh, unusually optimistic. |
| 0:51.8 | You're usually like sick or overworked or something. |
| 0:56.2 | It's true. Well done. |
| 1:03.1 | Famous last words. Anyway, how are you? Also good. I just spent the weekend being a tourist in my own city. Do you ever do that? |
| 1:11.9 | Yeah, when people come to visit me. It's really nice when people come and visit especially because you can just see things with fresh eyes and be grateful that you live in this place that people want to visit for fun. But I went to the Muse D'Orsay and I posted this on our |
| 1:17.3 | Instagram, but I was made aware of the fact that this beautiful, beautiful museum got used as a car park |
| 1:23.3 | in the 70s? Did you know that? I didn't know that, but I did know that it was originally a train station, right? |
| 1:28.9 | Yeah, and it still very much has a train station vibe and a big clock and all that jazz. |
| 1:33.4 | Anyway, it's a great museum. Go visit. Nobody needs that advice. But there you go. You have it from me. |
| 1:39.9 | What are we talking about this week? |
... |
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