What secrets do our ovaries hold?

Dr Güneş Taylor is a postdoctoral research scientist at The Francis Crick Institute (https://www.crick.ac.uk/). As a molecular biologist, she uses many cutting-edge technologies to understand how reproductive systems are built. She is now leading an independent research program, unravelling details of ovarian function, with the goal of developing solutions for women’s health and fertility. 

Güneş is a public speaker, regularly appearing at public venues discussing future technologies and sex differences with household names such as Richard Dawkins, Yuval Harari, Slavoj Zizek, Robert Plomin, Simon Baron-Cohen and Lord Robert Winston. Over the last ten years, she has been interviewed for numerous articles and podcasts such as New Scientist, Beyond Today and The Guardian Science Weekly, and recently consulted on BBC documentary Dolly: The Sheep that Changed the World (2022). In 2019, Güneş was a finalist for the NESTA Tipping Point Prize with an essay on the potential environmental benefits of genome editing. Güneş speaks and writes about fertility research, academia, future technologies and philosophy across multiple social media platforms. Her open style of communication and personal life experiences as a refugee and member of the LBGTQ+ community who has moved many times across different European countries make her relatable to diverse audiences. Reflecting this passion for making biology accessible to everyone, Güneş was awarded the Inaugural Francis Crick Award for Science Communication in 2018.

(00:00) Intro

(01:25) How does nature decide the sex of an embryo?

(05:12) What drives sex determination?

(07:12) Mechanisms of sex determination, organ development, and genetic modification of sex after birth

(13:48) Synthetic embryos and the recent discoveries in reproductive technology

(19:21) Population growth

(20:34) Zooming into the ovaries and the ovarian reserve

(24:06) The link between ovarian reserve and menopause

(27:14) Is it possible to genetically modify the ovarian reserve?

(30:01) Egg quality and ageing

(32:06) Egg freezing

(33:52) Is there such a thing as a "sperm reserve?"

(41:16) What can our understanding of our reproductive biology help us understand about life, nature, and the universe?

(43:30) Are male and female brains different?

(50:47) What is the future of reproductive technology?

Follow Güneş and check out her research work:

https://www.gunestaylor.com/

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