Springer Nature

French Polynesia is a South Pacific paradise, and thanks to an eccentric aviculturist it is also host to an interesting evolutionary experiment. In 1937, Eastham Guild released silvereye birds on Tahiti, from where they dispersed to other islands. Now they form the perfect system for testing the roles of drift and selection in rapid morphological divergence. Join Ashley Sendell-Price (University of Oxford) as he discusses his resent research on silvereyes, and stick around for some views on LGBTQ+ communities in STEM at the end.

A Genetics Society Heredity Fieldwork Grant supported Ash’s research, find out more about the scheme here: https://genetics.org.uk/grants/heredity-fieldwork-grant/

In episode four of our editorial series we meet Dr Giorgio Bertorelle from the University of Ferrara, Italy. An animal population and conservation geneticist, Giorgio is fascinated by the impact human activities have on the evolution of animal genomes.

Poison dart frogs are an iconic group of tropical animals. But how and when did their spectacular warning colourations evolve? And are they really a signal to predators? In this episode we explore these questions with Diana Rojas and Adam Stow, as they discuss their recent forays into the depths of both Amazonia and modern molecular methods to unravel the evolutionary history of colour diversification in the splash-backed poison frog, Adelphobates galactonotus.

A group of more than 130 disorders share a common problem: a glycosylation issue in development where the necessary sugar chains are fully or partly missing from their needed location on protein surfaces. Patients with one of the congenital disorders of glycosylation (CDG) called SLC35A2 CDG are missing galactose, the sugar in milk, on their proteins. Without this sugar chain building block, SLC35A CDG patients often suffer from severe epilepsy, liver dysfunction and decreased coagulation among other symptoms. Tune in to this month’s GenePod to hear Dr. Eva Morava, a professor of medical genetics at the Mayo Clinic, discuss how moonlighting enzymes and metabolic adaptation from a galactose supplement benefited patients in a small pilot study published in Genetics in Medicine.

In this episode, we meet Early Career Investigator, Dr Anna Tottman who during her time at the University of Aukland, Liggins Institute performed a retrospective cohort study looking at the relationship between neonatal nutrition and neurodevelopmental outcomes. Her research suggests that nutrition for preterm infants may need to be sex-specific. Take a listen!

Preterm infants regularly need Packed red blood cell transfusions. This life-saving therapy can help prevent anaemia of prematurity and in turn, safeguard normal organ function. However, there is a risk that donor blood contains the heavy metals mercury (Hg), lead (Pb) and Cadmium (Cd) which are known developmental neurotoxicants and may be present in neurotoxic doses. In this episode we meet Alison Falck, Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Maryland School of Medicine who has studied the relationship between the donor concentration, number of transfusions and exposure in preterm infants. Her results may have implications for prescreening of donor blood.

Is more better? As the cost of genetic testing plummets, allowing more people to get testing of more genes, researchers and clinicians are asking: who should get tested, and for what? One recent study suggested that all breast cancer patients should get genetic testing. But does the evidence support this approach? In a recent ACMG statement published in Genetics in Medicine (GIM), the statement’s authors weighed the evidence for BRCA1/2 and other germline genetic testing in patients with breast cancer and recommended points for clinicians to consider. On this month’s episode of GenePod, GIM’s monthly podcast, host Cynthia Graber talks with Dr. Tuya Pal, associate director for cancer health disparities at the Vanderbilt University Ingram Cancer Center and first author of ACMG’s recent statement, and Dr. Susan Domchek, director of the Basser Center for BRCA at the University of Pennsylvania and author of a commentary on the ACMG statement, about the evidence, gaps in current knowledge, and how to improve testing rates among high-risk patients.

Related article link:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41436-019-0712-x

Related commentary:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41436-019-0721-9

A number of drugs that are used recreationally are now being studied for their use in psychopharmacology. But while the ways in which these drugs are similar or different has been described anecdotally by recreational users, they haven’t been studied in comparison to one another. Dr. Matthias Liechti and his team of researchers recently published a study in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology, in which 28 healthy subjects, men and women, take doses of LSD, MDMA, amphetamines, and a placebo over four different sessions. Dr. Liechti says this blinding is important; in other studies, participants either have taken a drug or a placebo and can tell when they’re taking the drug. But in this case they don’t know which drug they’re taking, which allows the effects of the drugs to be compared against each other. Take a listen to find out more!

It’s known that there’s a relationship between post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, and a higher rate of opioid abuse. What isn’t understood, though, is what that relationship is. Does PTSD cause people to turn to opioids in particular among all the potential drugs of abuse, or is there something about opioid use that makes users particularly sensitive to trauma? This is just what Michael Fanselow, professor in the psychology and psychiatry departments at UCLA, and his colleagues investigated for a recent study in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology. Have a listen to learn more!

Related article:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41386-019-0559-5

In episode three of our editorial series we meet forest engineer turned plant geneticist Prof. Dario Grattapaglia. A highly experienced researcher and editor, Dario brings a unique and heavily applied focus to his work. His story and views on publishing are sure to inspire many!