The dangers of the modern world (and what science is doing about it)

We are exposed to many chemicals in our daily lives, often in surprising ways. Some are dangerous, others pretty harmless – but the sheer number of potential ways we can come into contact with chemicals has risen in line with the growth of modern technology and has the potential to impact on our health. So how can we stay safe? The good news is that science is keeping pace with the chemical mix. In this talk we'll go through a whistle-stop tour of how chemicals are introduced in our environment and how advances in science are working to protect us from the good, the bad and the downright ugly.

Metagenomic sequencing allows us to identify the source of outbreaks, predict the spread of an outbreak and also identifies mutations that may cause problems such as antibiotic resistance or more severe disease. This new technique has been successfully used during the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, the Zika outbreak in South America and will be fundamental in monitoring outbreaks in the future.