Base Pairs

Who will use CRISPR to alter their child's DNA? Who gets to decide which traits are desirable? Following up on our last episode, "Good Genes, Bad Science," we hear from David Micklos, executive director at CSHL’s DNA Learning Center, and Miriam Rich, CSHL Archives Sydney Brenner Research Scholar and doctoral student at Harvard, on these big questions.

In the early 1900s, American science took a wrong turn toward eugenics. In this episode, we talk with experts in both science and history about what we can learn from this dark period in today’s age of unprecedented control over the genome.

A few favorite moments from our talk with theoretical physicist and quantitative biologist, Associate Professor Gurinder "Mickey" Atwal, that touch on topics ranging from his stint in medical school to the job market in the age of big data to Schrödinger's cat.

A "behind the screens" look at how biology is addressing its "most wonderful problem" – too much data. Associate Professor Gurinder S. "Mickey" Atwal joins us to explain the essential enigma that is quantitative biology.

Plant scientist Zachary Lippman tells stories from the field of bizarre tomatoes, intensely hot peppers, and giant pumpkins in this latest "chat" episode of Base Pairs.

Hear more from Zack in episode 10 – CRISPR vs Climate Change.

Much of the hype around the genome editing tool known as CRISPR focuses on its potential to cure genetic diseases. But our bodies need more than a healthy genome to survive and thrive—they also need food, and that’s where we may see CRISPR’s earliest effects on our lives. In this episode, we talk with plant scientist and Associate Professor Zach Lippman about the threats that climate change poses to agriculture, and how CRISPR could help overcome them.

Set aside your notions of how biologists are born, or what the word “gene” means as you listen to our first chat episode. We talk with Assistant Professor Molly Hammell, a genome biologist who started out as an astrophysicist. She tells us what it’s like to peer deep into space using a high-tech telescope. We also speak with Professor Tom Gingeras about whether it’s time to redefine the gene.

One scientist’s junk is apparently everyone’s treasure! They just haven’t realized it yet. . . In this episode of Base Pairs, we question the mythos that is “junk DNA” and explore how and why scientists are becoming enthralled by the mysterious non-coding portions of the genome.

Could “genome” be a misnomer? The name implies that our genetic information is mainly genes, yet when the Human Genome Project was completed in 2003, it revealed that genes comprise a tiny minority. About 98 percent of the genome is something else — a kind of genomic dark matter.

We chat with an astrophysicist-turned-genome-biologist, Assistant Professor Molly Hammell, about how she ended up studying a type of genomic dark matter called transposons.

We are Base Pairs, the podcast about "the power of genetic information." But why did we choose this name? In this bonus episode, we explain the molecules and the metaphor.

Pictured: Tin model of Adenine as first constructed by James Watson and Francis Crick whilst working at the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge in 1953. (Science Museum London / Science and Society Picture Library)