How genes run and ruin our lives…?

In today’s society we constantly battle with diet and exercise. Is our weight really a result of our diet or because of our genetics? Why do some people never gain weight whilst others struggle to lose it? Mitochondria are the biological components in our cells which are responsible for how efficient our metabolism is. The number of mitochondria we have, and thus the efficiency of our metabolism, is finely regulated by a number of factors including genetics, diet and exercise. I will explain how the mitochondria work and why our metabolisms are different.

Every second an adult man produces about 2000 sperm cells. During this mass production, the complete DNA with all its heritable information needs to be copied rapidly and accurately. In our research we use modern DNA technologies to compare the DNA of children with intellectual disability to DNA of their parents. We have discovered that copying errors, made mostly during sperm production, are the major cause of these disorders. Importantly, sperm of older men contains more of these copying errors than that of younger men, and this increases the risk of a child with intellectual disability.

Autophagy is the cell’s method of ‘self-devouring’, allowing it to protect itself by degrading and recycling unnecessary or damaged components. It is found throughout the body in almost every cell and is increasingly important in the research of bone development, disease and the aging process. Scientists have shown that changes in the autophagic pathway are found in cancer, neurodegeneration, heart disease and autoimmune disease. This means that autophagy is a potential target for drug therapy in many conditions…