Springer Nature

Hidden within shark genomes are clues to the evolution of marine biodiversity hotspots. In this episode, Dr Paolo Momigliano (University of Vigo), tells us about his work on the grey reef shark: from fishing in the tropical waters of the Coral Triangle to detailed demographic modelling.

This episode explores the recent Heredity paper: “Genomic insights into the historical and contemporary demographics of the grey reef shark” https://www.nature.com/articles/s41437-022-00514-4

To find out about the Genetics Society’s art competition for UK primary and secondary schools, visit: https://genetics.org.uk/hap-pea-birthday-mendel/

Traditional pathology have played an integral role in the delivery of diagnosis, semi-quantitative or qualitative assessment of protein expression, and classification of disease. Technological advances have recently paved the way for the development of digital pathology-based approaches for quantitative pathologic assessments, namely whole slide imaging (WSI) and artificial intelligence (AI)–based solutions, allowing us to explore and extract information beyond human visual perception.

In this episode, two distinguished leaders in the space: Vipul Baxi, Senior Scientific Director of Digital Pathology at Bristol Meyers Squibb and Michael Montalto, Chief Scientific Officer at Path AI discuss their recent review article in Modern Pathology. The share their thoughts on the promise of Digital Pathology and the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead.

In this episode we revisit an inspiring episode that answers the question: why should you publish in Heredity?

The giant tortoises of the Galápagos archipelago form one of the most iconic evolutionary systems in the world. But is all as it appears? Join Dr Evelyn Jensen (Newcastle University) and discover how museum specimens are reshaping our understanding of this famous radiation.

This episode explores the recent Heredity paper: “A new lineage of Galapagos giant tortoises identified from museum samples” https://www.nature.com/articles/s41437-022-00510-8

Driving while under the influence of THC, known as drugged driving, is becoming more of an issue as more states legalize cannabis for both medical and recreational use around the country. THC is known to impair cognitive and psychomotor performance and thus impair driving. Jodi Gilman is a neuroscientist and an associate professor of psychiatry at Mass General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, and she’s one of the authors of a new study in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology. She says that impairment and exposure are easier to correlate with alcohol. But tolerance to THC is so vastly different among different people, and the amounts that people use whether for pain or to get high are also so vastly different, that people can have detectible amounts of THC in their system, but it does not necessarily correlate with whether or not that person is too impaired to drive. Listen in to hear what she and her team did to try to detect brain impairment under the influence of THC.

Read the full article here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41386-021-01259-0

Barley is one of the world’s oldest and most important cultivated cereal grains. But it’s long history of domestication has resulted in greatly reduced genetic diversity, which isn’t ideal for plant breeding efforts. So, in this episode, Che-Wei Chang and Prof. Karl Schmid (University of Hohenheim) discuss their quest to find useful genetic variation in wild barley relatives.

This episode explores the recent Heredity paper: “Physical geography, isolation by distance and environmental variables shape genomic variation of wild barley (Hordeum vulgare L. ssp. spontaneum) in the Southern Levant” https://www.nature.com/articles/s41437-021-00494-x

Twenty-five percent of children who survive acute symptomatic seizures as neonates go on to develop epilepsy. Whilst there are several known risk factors, currently not enough is known about the mechanisms behind the development of epilepsy following neonatal brain injury, and thus it is not yet possible to reliably predict the individual risk of developing this disease in this group of patients.

In this episode, we speak to Adam Numis from UC San Francisco. He and his team used whole exome sequencing with targeted gene analysis to look for genetic risk factors for developing epilepsy following acute neonatal seizures, and to identify potential biological processes behind this epileptogenesis.

Read the study here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41390-021-01509-3

Every year Heredity publishes some outstanding student-led papers, and to recognise the quality of this work the journal runs a student paper prize. So, what makes a paper stand out? Find out, as we hear from overall winner Dr Allie Graham and 2nd runner-up Johanna Denkena.

Explore the full Student Prize Longlist Collection here: https://www.nature.com/collections/bedbicdicb

Inbreeding depression is often considered to be a bad thing, especially in conservation programmes. However, that may not always be the case. In this episode Dr Eugenio López-Cortegano (University of Edinburgh), Dr Eulalia Moreno (Estación Experimental de Zonas Áridas) and Prof. Aurora García-Dorado (Universidad Complutense de Madrid) discuss a surprising benefit of inbreeding in small, endangered populations.

In this episode we explore the recent Heredity paper: “Genetic purging in captive endangered ungulates with extremely low effective population sizes” https://www.nature.com/articles/s41437-021-00473-2

Most very preterm infants experience apneas of prematurity. It is a common comorbidity of prematurity, and therefore reliable real-time monitoring of respiratory rates is key in these infants. The conventional method is to use chest impedance measured with electrodes on the surface of the thorax. However, this method is known to be unreliable, as it is prone to motion artifacts. For this reason, indirect measurements such as oxygen desaturation or bradycardia are often necessary to identify apneas.

In this episode of the Pediatric Research PediaPod, we meet this month's featured Early Career Investigator, Dr. Kirsten Jost at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden. She describes a recent study of a novel technique using a commercially available nasogastric feeding tube that measures esophageal signals and uses customized software to identify the respiratory rate of non-ventilated preterm infants. Read the article here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41390-021-01748-4