The Secrets in Your DNA: Why Genes Don’t Tell the Whole Story

Mothers have long shouldered disproportionate blame for genetic risk, but when it comes to new mutations, the evidence points to fathers. In the testes of all men, some sperm stem cells acquire new mutations that make them behave selfishly, outcompeting their neighbours and quietly taking over. As men get older, these clones expand, increasing the chance of passing on mutations to the next generation - some harmful, some neutral, and a few potentially beneficial.
This talk unpacks the biology behind paternal age-effects, challenges outdated assumptions about genetic responsibility, and explores how competition between cells inside the body can shape inheritance in surprising, and sometimes unsettling, ways.

Two patients are diagnosed with the same type of leukaemia and carry the same genetic mutation — yet their cancers behave very differently. Why?

Cancer is often thought of as a disease of mutations: changes in DNA that allow cells to grow out of control. But mutations don’t tell the whole story. Scattered across our genome are millions of tiny “dimmer switches,” called enhancers, that control how active nearby genes are. We’ve found that the switches that are turned on can differ subtly between patients — even in cancers that look identical on paper — which can affect key genes that the cancer relies on. These hidden differences are helping us to better understand cancer and may eventually open up new ways to treat it.