Springer Nature

A history of distrust and skepticism surrounds genetics research for Alaska Native tribes. Not having tribal health organizations engaged with genetics research in a meaningful way means Alaska Native people are missing out on benefits from discoveries that come out of research. On this month’s GenePod, Denise Dillard, PhD, director of research for South Central Foundation, a tribal healthcare organization, discusses the goals behind facilitating a workshop between Alaska tribal leadership, biomedical researchers, and representatives from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The key takeaways from the workshop build upon ways to overcome barriers and address the need to form more effective partnerships. Tune in!

Related article:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41436-020-0926-y

A conversation with David Rimm, the author of a recent study on Triple negative breast cancer, on using a novel statistical algorithm (ONEST) to improve reproducibility of PD-L1 assessment by pathologists

Associated article: Prospective multi-institutional evaluation of pathologist assessment of PD-L1 assays for patient selection in triple negative breast cancer

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41379-020-0544-x

Institutions and healthcare systems had started to introduce wellness initiatives following the growing realization of the widespread problem of physician distress and burnout. Whilst these programs might be effective, there is currently a lack of evidence about who uses them and whether they are best suited to their target audience. In this episode, we meet Dr. Andrea Weintraub from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, who conducted a cross-sectional national survey amongst different pediatric subspecialties to find out which initiatives were available, whether people knew about them or used them, and to better understand what initiatives pediatricians would like to see made available.

Related Article: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41390-020-0805-x

Motivated by a series of mass mortalities, a team of marine biologists voyaged across the Caribbean in search of a poorly understood organism – the vase sponge. Join Dr Sarah Griffiths (Manchester Metropolitan University) and Prof. Donald Behringer (University of Florida) as they discuss the complex population genetic structures they uncovered, and the potential impact of their spongy discoveries on marine conservation and restoration efforts.

Associated article: Oceanographic features and limited dispersal shape the population genetic structure of the vase sponge Ircinia campana in the Greater Caribbean

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41437-020-0344-6

It’s understood in epidemiological research that women who experience trauma during puberty are at significantly higher risk for affective disorders such as depression and anxiety when they become pregnant. And so Tracy Bale, a professor in the departments of psychology and psychiatry at the University of Maryland in Baltimore, has done several studies using mice to try to model and understand this effect. In her latest paper in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology, she and her colleagues set out to study just what was happening to make the mouse brain so vulnerable to stress and trauma during puberty, and how this was activated during the hormonal onslaught of pregnancy. Have a listen to learn more!

Related article;

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41386-020-0634-y

Speciation is often considered unidirectional: a continual process of divergence interrupted only by extinction events. However, this isn’t entirely true. In this episode Dr Jente Ottenburghs (Wageningen University) discusses the curious case of the bean geese: where speciation appears to have stopped and, perhaps, begun to reverse.

Associated article: Recent introgression between Taiga Bean Goose and Tundra Bean Goose results in a largely homogeneous landscape of genetic differentiation

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41437-020-0322-z

The antagonistic co-evolution that characterises host-parasite relationships is one of the most fascinating interactions in genetics. In this episode, Dr Gilberto Bento discusses one such interaction, the Daphnia–Pasteuria host–parasite system, and the discovery of an alternative route of bacterial infection associated with a novel resistance locus. Dr Bento also talks about his experience of leaving academia to find an alternative career in science.

Associated article: An alternative route of bacterial infection associated with a novel resistance locus in the Daphnia–Pasteuria host–parasite system

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41437-020-0332-x

In episode five of our editorial series we meet Dr Rui Faria from the Research Center in Biodiversity and Genetic Resources at the University of Porto (Portugal). Dr Faria’s research looks at the role of chromosomal inversions in the generation of biological diversity, focusing on Littorina snails as a model. And, in a more personal inversion, Dr Faria took his first steps behind a scientific journal when he joined the Heredity Editorial team in May 2019: tune in to discover how he made the leap and what he thinks makes a great paper submission.

The arms race between the highly toxic rough-skinned newts of North America and the garter snakes that prey upon them is a literal textbook example of evolution in action. However, it appears that a piece of the genetic puzzle underpinning this interaction has been overlooked, until now. In this episode, PhD candidate Kerry Gendreau (Virginia Tech) and Dr Michael Hague (University of Montana) discuss their recent work showing that toxin resistance in garter snakes is sex-linked, and the implications this has for a system that is taught to almost every biology student.

Associated article: Sex linkage of the skeletal muscle sodium channel gene (SCN4A) explains apparent deviations from Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium of tetrodotoxin-resistance alleles in garter snakes (Thamnophis sirtalis)

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41437-020-0300-5

40% of infants with hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy (HIE) go on to develop long-term disability, despite receiving therapeutic hypothermia. Mounting evidence suggests that children with HIE are at a higher risk of both hypoglycemia and hyperglycemia, which may explain the variable outcomes to therapeutic hypothermia. In this episode, we meet this month's featured Early Career Investigator Dr. Paolo Montaldo, from Imperial College London, UK and the University of Campania Luigi Vanvitelli, Italy who used continuous glucose monitoring to assess the association between neonatal glucose control and neurological outcomes at 18-24 months.

Related Article: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41390-020-0827-4