The Life Scientific: Anne Ferguson-Smith

Discovery

BBC

Science

4.3 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 14 August 2023

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Our genes can tell us so much about us, from why we look the way we look, think the way we think, even what kind of diseases we might be likely to suffer from. But our genes aren't the whole story. There are other, complex and intriguing systems within every cell in our bodies which control which of our tens-of-thousands of genes are switched on, or off, in different parts of the body, and under different circumstances.

Welcome to the fascinating world of 'epigenetics', which our guest, the molecular geneticist Anne Ferguson-Smith, describes as 'genetics with knobs on'.

Anne, now Arthur Balfour Professor of Genetics and Pro-Vice Chancellor for Research at the University of Cambridge, tells Jim Al-Khalili about her life and work. She's spent her professional life at the cutting edge: from a degree in a brand new field of Molecular Biology, to post-grad working on brand new genetic structures, through to a lifetime of discoveries and breakthroughs which have changed our understanding of the genome.

Yet she wasn't always destined to be a scientist. She says she was a 'bad student' for a lot of her early life, and believes that embracing failure is an essential part of being a working scientist.

(Image: Anne Ferguson Smith. Credit: Anne Ferguson Smith)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Before you listen to this BBC podcast, I'd like to introduce myself.
0:03.6	My name's Stevie Middleton and I'm a BBC Commissioner for a load of sport podcasts.
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0:12.2	pundits and the biggest sport stars.
0:14.3	Together we bring you untold stories and fascinating insights straight from the players'
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0:28.8	dedicated sports fans across the UK.
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0:35.7	I was working in a coffee shop in Boston to help pay rent while I was training for the
0:40.4	trials and so people kept joking and they were like, oh yeah, she just took a two-hour coffee
0:43.9	break and went and ran the Olympic trials bare at that.
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0:59.4	Hello, there've always been those deep fundamental questions that we're all fascinated by,
1:05.1	who we are, where we've come from, what kind of legacy we might leave for our children.
1:10.2	Scientists, obsessed with these sorts of questions, might feel the pull towards genetics,
1:14.9	the study of our genes, those fascinating molecules that encode everything about who we are.
1:21.2	Genetics can tell us why we are the way we are, why we look the way we do, think the way we think,
1:26.2	even what kind of diseases we might be likely to suffer from. And of course, genetics can also
1:31.1	tell us where we came from, linking us to our ancestors via inherited strands of DNA,
	...

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