How do cells remember? | Leonard Schalkwyk | TEDxUniversityofEssex

We know that our environment has a long term effect on our development and health, but how do the tissues of our body remember a lifetime of environments? Given that all our cells have the same DNA, how do cells even know what function they are supposed to be fulfilling? An important part of this cellular memory is a chemical modification of the DNA called methylation. From a profile of DNA methylation we can readily tell what tissue the DNA was extracted from and the age of the person. Some environmental exposures leave a striking mark on the DNA methylation profile, for example smoking. We can use this to help unravel how the environment affects us.

Originally a microbiologist from Canada, Leo studied at the University of Alberta, graduating in 1983. His PhD (Dalhousie University, 1991) was on genome mapping of Haloferax, an archaeon from the Dead Sea. He worked on genomic resources for several species and genome mapping of mouse in Hans Lehrach’s laboratory at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund laboratory in London and at the Max-Planck-Institut für molekulare Genetik in Berlin. He was at the Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Research Centre, King’s College London from 2000-2014, where he worked on functional genomics and epigenomics, identifying genes involved in behaviour in the mouse and in depression, schizophrenia and Alzheimer’s disease in human. Leonard is a Member of the Molecular and Cellular Biosciences Research Group.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx

Видео How do cells remember? | Leonard Schalkwyk | TEDxUniversityofEssex канала TEDx Talks