And more from the International Congress of Genetics in Melbourne
- Catch-22: perils, promises, and profit from Indigenous peoples. Dr Krystal Tsosie, a member of the Navajo Nation, realised that her cancer research was unlikely to help her people. So she founded the Native BioData Consortium – to ensure that Indigenous people benefit from their DNA and data. Her research has been featured in the NYT.
- Capturing the genetic code of every species in the Tree of Life. Mark Blaxter’s UK team have sequenced their first thousand species as part of a bold project to read the genome of every species on Earth. He will report that some animals throw away some of their DNA in their bodies (retaining it in their germlines).
- Reconstructing the lives of some of the 12 million Africans forcibly transported to colonial Americas. Maria Nieves-Colón is piloting the use of tooth DNA to start to discover the history of enslaved workers at a sugar plantation in Peru.
- Prostate cancer: a blood test for circulating tumour DNA could reveal which patients are at higher risk according to Bernard Pope from the University of Melbourne
- Do jumping genes enable mosquitos to adapt to urban environments, asks Spain’s Dr Josefa Gonzalez
- Nobel Laureate Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard, African Biogenome Project leader Anne Muigai, Science Executive Editor Valda Vinson on Women in Science – unique journeys to different peaks, with Jen Martin.