An apple a day keeps the doctor away?

Genes are the building blocks of life and have a range of functions in the human body, affecting traits like our height, what diseases we get, and how we respond to treatment. But there are millions of genetic variants in the human genome. How do we know which ones are important? In this talk, I discuss how we identify important genetic features for a trait, and how this can be used to predict responses to treatment, allowing development of personalised medicine programs.

The brain controls food intake by coordinating information on energy needs that it receives from the rest of the body. Understanding how the brain regulates food intake normally is critical to help understand how to treat diseases such as obesity and anorexia. Scientists have made progress in understanding how feeding is controlled, but we still have a lot to learn.

New drugs are expensive (approx. $1.5 bill) and take 10-12 years to produce. Safety is central to the progress of a drug during the ‘development pipeline’; many drugs fail safety testing, often at a late stage of development. Safety assessment covers multiple different targets and historically (regulated) mammalian studies have been used. Is it possible to provide early warnings of potential human side effects and to improve new drug selection using a fish common to home aquaria?