[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” background_image=”https://www.genomebc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Group-11-1.png” parallax=”on” parallax_method=”off” z_index=”99999″ width=”100%” max_width=”100%” custom_padding=”0px|0px||0px|false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_row column_structure=”1_2,1_2″ custom_padding_last_edited=”on|phone” _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” width=”100%” max_width=”100%” custom_padding=”25px|40px||40px|false|true” custom_padding_tablet=”25px|40px|0px|40px|false|true” custom_padding_phone=”25px|20px|0px|20px|false|true” custom_css_main_element=”display:flex;” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”1_2″ _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” custom_css_main_element_last_edited=”on|phone” custom_css_main_element_phone=”width:30% !important”][et_pb_image src=”https://www.genomebc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/small-g-1.png” title_text=”small-g 1″ url=”https://www.genomebc.ca/nice-genes” _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” width=”46px” width_tablet=”46px” width_phone=”50%” width_last_edited=”on|phone” max_width=”50%” global_colors_info=”{}”][/et_pb_image][/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_2″ _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”Titillium Web|600|||||||” text_font_size=”20px” text_letter_spacing=”1px” custom_padding=”25px||||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”]

[/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][et_pb_row column_structure=”1_2,1_2″ use_custom_gutter=”on” gutter_width=”1″ make_equal=”on” custom_padding_last_edited=”on|phone” _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” background_image=”https://www.genomebc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Group-12.png” background_size=”contain” background_position=”top_center” width=”85%” width_tablet=”100%” width_phone=”100%” width_last_edited=”on|phone” max_width=”85%” max_width_tablet=”100%” max_width_phone=”100%” max_width_last_edited=”on|tablet” custom_margin=”||||false|false” custom_padding=”0px|55px|0px|55px|false|true” custom_padding_tablet=”0px|55px|0px|55px|false|true” custom_padding_phone=”|25px||25px|false|true” background_last_edited=”on|desktop” background_size_phone=”contain” global_colors_info=”{}” custom_css_main_element_last_edited=”on|tablet” custom_css_main_element_tablet=”display:flex;” custom_css_main_element_phone=”.”][et_pb_column type=”1_2″ _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” custom_css_main_element=”display:flex;flex-direction: column; justify-content:center;align-items:flex-end;” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_text disabled_on=”off|off|off” _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”Titillium Web||||||||” text_text_color=”#FFFFFF” text_font_size=”36px” text_line_height=”1.3em” width=”100%” max_width=”600px” custom_margin=”||||false|false” custom_padding=”25px||||false|false” custom_padding_tablet=”25px|0px|||false|false” custom_padding_phone=”25px|0px|||false|false” custom_padding_last_edited=”on|tablet” text_font_size_tablet=”24px” text_font_size_phone=”24px” text_font_size_last_edited=”on|tablet” text_orientation_tablet=”” text_orientation_phone=”center” text_orientation_last_edited=”on|phone” module_alignment_tablet=”left” module_alignment_phone=”center” module_alignment_last_edited=”on|tablet” global_colors_info=”{}”]

EPISODE 3

[/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” header_font=”Titillium Web|900|||||||” header_text_color=”#FFFFFF” header_font_size=”46px” header_letter_spacing=”1px” max_width=”600px” custom_margin=”10px||0px||false|false” header_text_align_tablet=”” header_text_align_phone=”center” header_text_align_last_edited=”on|phone” header_font_size_tablet=”34px” header_font_size_phone=”34px” header_font_size_last_edited=”on|tablet” global_colors_info=”{}”]

THE INVISIBLE FOOTPRINT: HOW THE HUNT FOR WILD SPECIES LEADS TO eDNA

[/et_pb_text][et_pb_text disabled_on=”off|off|off” _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”Titillium Web||||||||” text_text_color=”#FFFFFF” text_font_size=”36px” text_line_height=”1.1em” max_width=”600px” custom_margin=”||||false|false” custom_padding=”5px|0%|3px||false|false” custom_padding_tablet=”5px|0px|||false|false” custom_padding_phone=”5px|0px|30px||false|false” custom_padding_last_edited=”on|tablet” text_font_size_tablet=”24px” text_font_size_phone=”24px” text_font_size_last_edited=”on|tablet” text_orientation_tablet=”” text_orientation_phone=”center” text_orientation_last_edited=”on|phone” global_colors_info=”{}”]

CO-HOST: CYLITA GUY, PHD, ECOLOGIST, DATA SCIENTIST, SCIENCE COMMUNICATOR

GUEST: GABI FLEURY, CONSERVATIONIST, TECHNOLOGIST, RESEARCHER

[/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_2″ _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_image src=”https://www.genomebc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/S1Episode3-Cover-Art.png” title_text=”S1Episode3 – Cover Art” _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” width=”100%” width_tablet=”300px” width_phone=”100%” width_last_edited=”on|phone” max_width=”580px” max_width_tablet=”” max_width_phone=”100%” max_width_last_edited=”on|phone” module_alignment=”center” custom_padding=”||0px||false|false” module_alignment_tablet=”left” module_alignment_phone=”left” module_alignment_last_edited=”on|tablet” global_colors_info=”{}”][/et_pb_image][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][et_pb_row custom_padding_last_edited=”on|phone” _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” width=”90%” max_width=”90%” custom_padding=”|50px||50px|false|true” custom_padding_tablet=”|50px||50px|false|true” custom_padding_phone=”30px|0px|0px|0px|false|true” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]

[/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][et_pb_row use_custom_gutter=”on” gutter_width=”1″ disabled_on=”off|off|off” _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” width=”40%” width_tablet=”100%” width_phone=”100%” width_last_edited=”on|tablet” max_width=”40%” max_width_tablet=”70%” max_width_phone=”94%” max_width_last_edited=”on|tablet” custom_margin=”15px||||false|false” custom_padding=”0px||||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” custom_padding=”|0px|||false|false” custom_css_main_element=”display:flex;||” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_image src=”https://www.genomebc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Apple-Podcasts-1.png” title_text=”Apple Podcasts 1″ url=”https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/nice-genes/id1622851335″ url_new_window=”on” _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” width=”80%” custom_margin=”0px|10px|||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”][/et_pb_image][et_pb_image src=”https://www.genomebc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Google-Podcasts-1.webp” title_text=”Google Podcasts 1″ url=”https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9vbW55LmZtL3Nob3dzL25pY2UtZ2VuZXMvcGxheWxpc3RzL3BvZGNhc3QucnNz” url_new_window=”on” _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” width=”80%” custom_margin=”0px|10px|||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”][/et_pb_image][et_pb_image src=”https://www.genomebc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Spotify-1.png” title_text=”Spotify 1″ url=”https://open.spotify.com/show/1QMp75HRv58202xP8HrOwN?si=0d5b10d694084983&nd=1″ url_new_window=”on” _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” width=”80%” custom_margin=”|10px|||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”][/et_pb_image][et_pb_image src=”https://www.genomebc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Amazon-Music-1.png” title_text=”Amazon Music 1″ url=”https://music.amazon.ca/podcasts/a347275a-ce02-4d68-ba97-b9e75d86f9ff/nice-genes” url_new_window=”on” _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” width=”80%” custom_margin=”||||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”][/et_pb_image][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” width=”100%” max_width=”1600px” custom_padding=”|55px||55px|false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text” _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” header_font=”Titillium Web|900|||||||” header_text_color=”#FFFFFF” header_font_size=”48px” header_3_font=”Titillium Web|900||on|||||” header_3_text_color=”#FFFFFF” header_3_font_size=”48px” header_3_letter_spacing=”1px” max_width=”1300px” module_alignment=”right” custom_margin=”10px||0px||false|false” header_text_align_tablet=”” header_text_align_phone=”center” header_text_align_last_edited=”on|phone” header_font_size_tablet=”34px” header_font_size_phone=”34px” header_font_size_last_edited=”on|tablet” header_3_font_size_tablet=”34px” header_3_font_size_phone=”34px” header_3_font_size_last_edited=”on|tablet” locked=”off” global_colors_info=”{}”]

“Science is adventurous…”

[/et_pb_text][et_pb_text disabled_on=”off|off|off” _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”Titillium Web||||||||” text_text_color=”#FFFFFF” text_font_size=”36px” text_line_height=”1.3em” width=”100%” max_width=”1300px” module_alignment=”right” custom_margin=”||||false|false” custom_padding=”0px||||false|false” custom_padding_tablet=”25px|0px|||false|false” custom_padding_phone=”25px|0px|||false|false” custom_padding_last_edited=”on|tablet” text_font_size_tablet=”24px” text_font_size_phone=”24px” text_font_size_last_edited=”on|tablet” module_alignment_tablet=”left” module_alignment_phone=”center” module_alignment_last_edited=”off|desktop” locked=”off” global_colors_info=”{}”]

– DR. ESKE WILLERSLEV

[/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” header_font=”Titillium Web|900|||||||” header_text_color=”#FFFFFF” header_font_size=”48px” header_3_font=”Titillium Web|900||on|||||” header_3_text_color=”#FFFFFF” header_3_font_size=”48px” max_width=”1300px” module_alignment=”right” custom_margin=”50px||5px||false|false” header_text_align_tablet=”” header_text_align_phone=”center” header_text_align_last_edited=”on|phone” header_font_size_tablet=”34px” header_font_size_phone=”34px” header_font_size_last_edited=”on|tablet” header_3_font_size_tablet=”34px” header_3_font_size_phone=”34px” header_3_font_size_last_edited=”on|tablet” locked=”off” global_colors_info=”{}”]

in this episode

[/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”Roboto||||||||” text_text_color=”#FFFFFF” max_width=”1300px” module_alignment=”right” global_colors_info=”{}”]

Most of us have a hard-enough time looking for our cell phone chargers in the dark. So imagine trying to find something that’s hidden high in building rafters, deep in muddy bogs, or scattered across endless savannahs. And now, imagine the thing you’re looking for has fangs… and sharp claws.

Dr. Kaylee Byers and her wing-woman Dr. Cylita Guy, call-in wildlife conservationist Gabi Fleury to assist in answering, ‘How do you find that which doesn’t want to be found? And should you?’ Globally speaking, does our need to turn over every rock to find vulnerable species really intersect with conservation? Rats, bats, and cheetahs weasel their way into this exciting conversation on how the study of genomics may be the “hopping off point” into a more sustainable future.

Also joining us is world famous DNA scientist, professor and globe-trotting adventurer Eske Willerslev, sharing the secret weapon he pioneered to find some of the world’s most elusive creatures.

Listen to Nice Genes! wherever you get your podcasts, brought to you by Genome British Columbia.

[/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” header_font=”Titillium Web|900|||||||” header_text_color=”#FFFFFF” header_font_size=”48px” header_3_font=”Titillium Web|900||on|||||” header_3_text_color=”#FFFFFF” header_3_font_size=”48px” max_width=”1300px” module_alignment=”right” custom_margin=”50px||5px||false|false” header_text_align_tablet=”” header_text_align_phone=”center” header_text_align_last_edited=”on|phone” header_font_size_tablet=”34px” header_font_size_phone=”34px” header_font_size_last_edited=”on|tablet” header_3_font_size_tablet=”34px” header_3_font_size_phone=”34px” header_3_font_size_last_edited=”on|tablet” locked=”off” global_colors_info=”{}”]

Highlights

5:39 – 7:45 “Dr. Byers and Dr. Guy try to spot elusive species.”
15:18 – 18:35 “The half hazard hopes of tracking and finding wild animals with Gabi Fleury.”
22:13 – 33:22 “The genomic secret weapon to find sneaky critters, eDNA.”

[/et_pb_text][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text” _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” header_font=”Titillium Web|900|||||||” header_text_color=”#FFFFFF” header_font_size=”48px” header_3_font=”Titillium Web|900||on|||||” header_3_text_color=”#FFFFFF” header_3_font_size=”48px” max_width=”1300px” module_alignment=”right” custom_margin=”50px||5px||false|false” header_text_align_tablet=”” header_text_align_phone=”center” header_text_align_last_edited=”on|phone” header_font_size_tablet=”34px” header_font_size_phone=”34px” header_font_size_last_edited=”on|tablet” header_3_font_size_tablet=”34px” header_3_font_size_phone=”34px” header_3_font_size_last_edited=”on|tablet” locked=”off” global_colors_info=”{}”]

Resources

[/et_pb_text][et_pb_text disabled_on=”off|off|off” _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”Roboto||||||||” text_text_color=”#FFFFFF” max_width=”1300px” module_alignment=”right” link_option_url=”https://bit.ly/3QlLVue” hover_enabled=”0″ locked=”off” global_colors_info=”{}” sticky_enabled=”0″]

[/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”Roboto||||||||” text_text_color=”#FFFFFF” text_font_size=”20px” max_width=”1300px” module_alignment=”right” link_option_url=”https://vimeo.com/726929371″ locked=”off” global_colors_info=”{}”]

Spot the species game

[/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”Roboto||||||||” text_text_color=”#FFFFFF” text_line_height=”2.6em” max_width=”1300px” module_alignment=”right” global_colors_info=”{}”]

Dr.Cylita Guy, Science Storyteller and Educator

Gabi Flery – Conservationist, technologist, Researcher

What is eDNA

Dr. Eske Willerslev, DNA Scientist, Professor and Director of University of Copenhagen’s Centre of Excellence GeoGenetics

Diverse Plant and Animal Genetic Records from Holocene and Pleistocene Sediments, Science

Identifying twice as many species with eDNA, Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences.

Going out for dinner—The consumption of agriculture pests by bats in urban areas

Book: Chasing Bats and Tracking Rats: Urban Ecology, Community Science, and How We Share Our Cities

[/et_pb_text][et_pb_button button_url=”https://www.genomebc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/NiceGenes-GeneskoolActivity-Episode01.pdf” url_new_window=”on” button_text=”Download Learn-a-long” button_alignment=”center” disabled_on=”on|on|on” _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” custom_button=”on” button_text_size=”26px” button_text_color=”#FFFFFF” button_font=”Titillium Web|||on|||||” custom_margin=”25px||25px||true|false” disabled=”on” global_colors_info=”{}”][/et_pb_button][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” header_font=”Titillium Web|900|||||||” header_text_color=”#FFFFFF” header_font_size=”48px” header_3_font=”Titillium Web|900||on|||||” header_3_text_color=”#FFFFFF” header_3_font_size=”48px” max_width=”1300px” module_alignment=”right” custom_margin=”50px||5px||false|false” header_text_align_tablet=”” header_text_align_phone=”center” header_text_align_last_edited=”on|phone” header_font_size_tablet=”34px” header_font_size_phone=”34px” header_font_size_last_edited=”on|tablet” header_3_font_size_tablet=”34px” header_3_font_size_phone=”34px” header_3_font_size_last_edited=”on|tablet” locked=”off” global_colors_info=”{}”]

Transcript

Dr. Kaylee Byers 0:03
Today, we’re searching for something.

Gabi Fleury 0:05
We’re gonna walk through some tall grass here, hold on, you might hear some scraping as I’m walking through.

Dr. Kaylee Byers 0:11
We’re in Central Africa with conservation biologists Gabi Fleury, who’s looking for one particular animal.

Gabi Fleury 0:19
This is Gabi from the field. Today, I’m going to try to spot something that’s very difficult to be spotted, and also happens to be spotted. A cheetah.

[/et_pb_text][et_pb_toggle title=”Read Transcript..” open_toggle_text_color=”#FFFFFF” icon_color=”RGBA(255,255,255,0)” open_icon_color=”RGBA(255,255,255,0)” open_use_icon_font_size=”on” open_icon_font_size=”0px” _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” title_text_color=”#FFFFFF” title_font=”Roboto|700|||||||” title_font_size=”32px” body_font=”Roboto||||||||” body_text_color=”#FFFFFF” body_font_size=”20px” body_line_height=”24px” background_color=”RGBA(255,255,255,0)” max_width=”1320px” module_alignment=”right” border_width_all=”0px” global_colors_info=”{}”]

Dr. Kaylee Byers 0:32
But cheetahs are quick and timid too. And together, that makes them really hard to find in the wild.

Gabi Fleury 0:39
So here, I see a track. Alright, so what I’m looking at here is not a cheetah’s track. So, this is actually a jackals track. It’s quite small. And the difference between a cheetah’s track, which kind of has the claw marks in the dirt, but it also has kind of a wavy back to the pad. This one has a straight pad and nails. And because of its small size, you can tell here that this would probably be a black-backed jackal track. So, as you can see, it can sometimes be a bit of a challenge to try to figure out where cheetahs are.

Dr. Kaylee Byers 1:21
And it’s really important that scientists find where cheetahs are going because it could mean the difference between a thriving ecosystem of wildlife, and some ecological imbalance.

Gabi Fleury 1:33
It’s a beautiful day. The sun is shining, and the birds are singing. And I’ve got a lot more hiking to do, so I will catch you all later.

Dr. Kaylee Byers 1:49
You’re listening to Nice Genes! a show all about unravelling the fascinating world of genomics sponsored by Genome British Columbia. I’m your host, Dr. Kaylee Byers, here to wade with you through the murky scientific waters of genomes. So, how do you locate what doesn’t want to be found? And I’m not talking about that elusive set of car keys that always seems to be on the lam. I’m talking about wild animals. Coy cats, smooth salamanders, beautiful bugs and all the critters in between. Humans have cataloged over 1.7 million species. And that might sound like a lot, but it’s just a drop in the bucket of the approximately 8.7 million that scurry, crawl, hop or fly across the globe. And that doesn’t even get into bacteria which gets things to be a little bit wild. A lot of these organisms are tough to find, invisible to see and super stealthy. For now, I’ve enlisted the help of a second set of scientific eyes for my personal ambition to find them all. Dr. Cylita Guy will be my wing woman on this episode Cylita, thanks for joining me.

Dr. Cylita Guy 3:14
Well, thanks for having me along, Kaylee and of course, introducing me as your ‘wing woman’. It’s very it’s very fitting.

Dr. Kaylee Byers 3:21
So here are the deets Cylita, you’re an ecologist and data scientist.

Dr. Cylita Guy 3:25
I am.

Dr. Kaylee Byers 3:26
And also a children’s book author, like all the things

Dr. Cylita Guy 3:29
I try.

Dr. Kaylee Byers 3:30
But I want to employ a particular set of your skills. As you know, and by now, our listeners know too, I am a bit of a rat detective. And you study a second set of mammals that also gets a bad rap. Bats. Can you tell us about that? What kind of research you’ve done with them?

Dr. Cylita Guy 3:50
Yes, of course. So, as you mentioned, I studied bats, which are not rats with wings. They’re their own separate group of mammals. And I study bats as carriers of what we call ‘zoonotic diseases’, or species jumping pathogens. These are diseases that can leap from wildlife into humans. So, I studied them globally is kind of carriers of disease. But then I also spent time studying them very locally, within my own city, the city of Toronto.
I had a very hard time finding bats in the city of Toronto, I would go out into the field with these very large nets, I would go out, I would set up these huge nets, and then I would just sit in the dark and wait. And if I was lucky, maybe in a single night, I might be able to catch five bats, and then I would take some of them, let them go and hope that I didn’t get interference, and I was actually able to track those tags through the landscape. So, it was totally worth it for what we learned about bats that live in our cities.

Dr. Kaylee Byers 4:54
Yeah, I feel like a lot of my life, too, is sitting there hoping to catch an animal and then put a tag on and then hoping that tag would stay on. Just a lot of hoping.

Dr. Cylita Guy 5:03
Yeah, I think there’s a lot of good vibes that go into doing field research really like maybe if I just think really positively about this a bat will fly in my net.

Dr. Kaylee Byers 5:15
Just putting good vibes out in the universe, hoping the animals pick them up and then send them back our way.
Given our respective rat-bat detective skills, I thought we could track some elusive wildlife together today and pool those detective skills together. What do you think?

Gabi Fleury 5:32
I mean, I can’t think of a better way to spend my morning, so… We’re gonna pull up some photos of species that blend so well into their environments that you would have to be, I don’t know, Kaylee two crack shot ecologists (can we call ourselves that?) to spot them so, we’re gonna have 10 seconds each to look at a photo and then try to name the species hidden in plain sight.

Dr. Kaylee Byers 5:58
And for listeners who want to play along, there’s a link in our show description and landing page so you can spot elusive critters with us.

Dr. Cylita Guy 6:06
Kaylee, are you ready?

Dr. Kaylee Byers 6:08
Rat Woman and Bat Girl assemble! That’s not trademarked…

Dr. Cylita Guy 6:20
I am seeing a weird white blob. Could that be…?

Dr. Kaylee Byers 6:27
No, it was not a snow leopard!

Dr. Cylita Guy 6:29
Snow Leopard?! There was not a snow leopard in there! Where?

Dr. Kaylee Byers: 6:33
Okay, this one is cruel…

Dr. Cylita Guy 6:35
This looks like a caterpillar. There’s a caterpillar there. I see a caterpillar!

Dr. Kaylee Byers 6:38
For sure.

Dr. Cylita Guy 6:42
Yes!

Dr. Kaylee Byers 6:43
Good for you, Cylita.

Dr. Cylita Guy 6:46
And a..? Oh, and here’s where my roll ends.

Dr. Kaylee Byers 6:48
Is there a… adorable little puffer fish or something sitting there in that rock?

Dr. Cylita Guy 6:53
I feel like it’s gotta be a type of type of fish. This looks like a stream bed?

Dr. Kaylee Byers 6:58
Looks like a kind of looks like a cute little puffer fish… Wolf Spider?! Oh, no!

Dr. Cylita Guy 7:05
Very wrong. That was, that was not underwater at all… Oh, flat fish? There’s a flat fish.

Dr. Kaylee Byers 7:11
Flat Fish.

Dr. Cylita Guy 7:14
Okay, I feel like we’re redeeming. It’s a flounder, were redeeming ourselves.

Dr. Kaylee Byers 7:18
Wide-eyed flounder fish… Oh! In the left, also, cheetah or dog?

Dr. Cylita Guy 7:27
Oh yeah, cheetah! Yeah, I saw it!

Dr. Kaylee Byers 7:34
Just some random dog that somebody let out? Running the countryside?

Dr. Cylita Guy 7:38
I like how I got a ‘great job’ and then I’m like ‘hmmm?’.

Dr. Kaylee Byers 7:40
You did so good! You did so good.

Dr Cylita Guy 7:47
All right now, from you listening to us fumble through that activity, I think it’s pretty clear that some species are really difficult to spot, even for your resident Canadian superheroes, Rat Woman and Bat Girl.

Dr. Kaylee Byers 8:00
So Cylita, and I have brought in some practice hands for this episode. And it’s my distinct pleasure to introduce Gabi Fleury. But can you tell us a bit about who you are and what you do?

Gabi Fleury 8:12
Certainly. So, I guess I get a superhero name, right? I’m the Cat Kid!

Dr. Kaylee Byers 8:16
Yeah, nice. I love it.

Gabi Fleury 8:19
So basically, I’m a conservation biologist. And I study mostly carnivores but also how carnivores interact with people. So, what I look at is something called human-wildlife interactions. So, you know, there can be positive interactions, there can be neutral interactions, and there can also be negative interactions. And I look on the more the negative side. So, carnivores sometimes will eat farmer’s livestock, farmers understandably don’t like it when carnivores eat their livestock, and it creates this kind of conflict. So, I look at kind of where the ecological and the social factors that drive that conflict and what are some ways to mitigate it.

Dr. Kaylee Byers 8:54
Amazing. And all of that sounds like really important work. But I want to start with the most important question of all of them, which is, what did you think of Cylita, and my incredible detective skills in that activity?

Gabi Fleury 9:06
I think there were some really hard ones in there. So, I think you did a pretty good job.

Dr. Kaylee Byers 9:13
That is so diplomatic. Really generous of you. Is it, is it like that at all, when you’re out spotting critters in the wild yourself?

Gabi Fleury 9:18
Absolutely. Especially in tall grass, it’s almost impossible to see them sometimes. And the thing about carnivores is that it depends what ecosystem you’re in. So if you’re in somewhere called like the, like the Maasai Mara, a lot of carnivores will be in kind of more out in the open and easier to see. If you’re somewhere like Amboseli, which is Southern Kenya, which is like a place that I’ve worked, you know, they’ve been in that environment and hunted by the Maasai, which are the local people, for a long time. So, carnivores [there] are very, very, very shy, and it’s even harder to see them. So, I have a friend who did her Ph.D. in the Northern Cape of South Africa. She spent nine years up there and saw three leopards and her Ph.D. was on leopards, so you can get a sense of how difficult it can be.

Dr. Kaylee Byers 9:57
Gabi, I mean, given that we’ve got Rat Woman, Bat Girl and now Cat Kid here today, I have to ask, can you give us your origin story? Like, where did this inspiration to track animals and become a conservation biologist come from?

Gabi Fleury 10:12
Well, it doesn’t start in a alleyway and Gotham unfortunately, that would be a lot cooler. I wanted to be a conservation that’s ever since I was about three years old. My mom blames the ‘Lion King’, I blame the fact that my dad is of an Angolan descent, and he told me stories about Southern African conservation my whole life. But I always knew it was something that I wanted to do. And I’m actually an osteosarcoma survivor. So, when I was seven years old, I was diagnosed with osteosarcoma, which is bone cancer. And a lot of kids actually got into conservation because they were out running around and able to be in nature. And I was basically bed-bound for several years. So, what I did was read. I read about every animal book I could get my hands on, I studied, and it just kind of made me want to go into conservation even more. And when I hit college, I actually learned that there’s actually a small contingent of Maasai who had moved to Harrisonburg, Virginia, of all places, where I went to my undergrad. And they were telling me about kind of the opportunity costs that they go through, you know, dealing with carnivore livestock conflict, how it affects people’s mental health, how it affects their livelihood, how it impacts them, culturally. And I became really interested in this idea of, you know, it’s not just carnivores, it’s actively impacting people. And how you find that balance?

Dr. Kaylee Byers 11:34
Here we are talking about how to find creatures today, creatures like cheetahs. And so, you know, I think one of the biggest questions I have for you as a biologist and a conservationist is, why is it so important to find these species? Like, why can’t they just stay lost? And wouldn’t it be potentially better for them and potentially better for people?

Gabi Fleury 11:54
Yeah, so that’s a great question. I think the importance of knowing what the population is, and things like that is because we need to know what’s there to be able to conserve it. So, we need to know what the population is, how it’s doing, what the structure is. So, you know, is it a healthy population, and also how animals move through a landscape. So, as we continue on, you know, into the future, and there’s so much more development, it gets harder for animals to move. So, knowing how they’re utilizing a landscape is really important. For example, 80% of carnivores in Africa exist outside of protected areas. So, they’re in these multi-use landscapes, where you have livestock farmers, you have people, you know, with small businesses, you just have a lot of things going on. So, knowing how they function in those multi-use landscapes is really important to be able to conserve them.

Dr. Kaylee Byers 12:42
So, sort of speaking of multi-use landscapes and following animals, you’ve also done a lot of research in many other places. And I was wondering if you could tell us a little bit about what those spaces look like.

Gabi Fleury 12:54
So, I tend to work in kind of semi-arid areas that are fairly rural. So, you know, there might be communities that have a small village. So, a lot of the time it’s dry, it’s either grasslands or kind of desert-y. And, you know, there’s not a lot of cars going around, there’s like, you know, field vehicles, or I’ve been in places where people use donkey carts. So, it’s kind of a little further out there. And usually, you have to go over a bunch of really bad dirt roads. So, I got really good at learning how to swerve around potholes and things like that.

Dr. Kaylee Byers 13:28
I would love to chat a little bit about your experience with cheetahs. And so, they are these majestic animals. But as majestic as they are, I’m guessing you probably don’t want to get up too close to them, generally. And there’s one story we’d really like to chat with you about, which is the first time you got to touch a cheetah. And can you tell us about that day?

Gabi Fleury 13:51
Yeah, so one thing I wanted to kind of like be clear is that I didn’t just go up to a wild cheetah and just like pat it on the head. It was actually it was a cat that had been caught up in the human-wildlife conflict incident. So basically, the farmer live-trapped it and then called the place where I was working, which was Cheetah Conservation Fund, and we went to be got the cat, and we brought it back to the center gently, gently knocked out for a little bit so we could kind of check you know how they’re doing. So the vets are looking over them, kind of checking their general health. But what was really cool was I was able to listen to his heartbeat. I’ve been obsessed with cheetahs since I was three, right? And when I was in the hospital, I really loved them because they could run really fast. They’ve always kind of been like my really special, emotionally attached to animal. Um, so I got to hear what a cheetah’s heartbeat sounded like. I cried, a lot. You know it slow cause he was he was asleep. But hearing that cat’s heartbeat, I realized how fragile they are and how easily that could stop. Because the thing with cheetahs is that they are quite fragile because they’ve put all of their evolutionary focus into being fast. So, they don’t really defend themselves that well. So yeah, so it’s just kind of the sense of extreme fragility. And I’m like, ‘I will do whatever it takes to make this animal be able to survive in the wild’.

Dr. Kaylee Byers 15:18
Okay, so this episode is all about how to find animals like elusive cheetahs. My case has been rats, Cylita, bats for you, right? So between the three of us, we have our methods. Maybe we could go, and maybe some of those methods are the same, we could go in a circle and talk a little bit about some of these methods we use? So, I’ll start: trap, mark, recapture. So, you catch the animal, you put a little tag on them, you release them back into the field.

Dr. Cylita Guy 15:45
Yeah, I’m pretty much… when we were doing our fieldwork, it was the same: trap, mark, hopefully, hopefully, recapture. Not a lot of recaptures, I will say that.

Gabi Fleury 15:55
A big thing that’s used for carnivores is also collaring. So collars, like VHF [Very High Frequency] collars on animals and being able to kind of track where they go over time.

Dr. Kaylee Byers 16:04
And so those VHF collars are like radio-tagged, and so you’re also standing in the field with one of those antennae, hey? Trying to find out how close they are to you, or in what direction?

Gabi Fleury 16:12
Yeah, and you know, you’re also looking at it, you know, on the computer, and you’re able to actually see how the animals are moving. Which is really, really cool. Because you can kind of see like, Okay, this particular cat that was released, has been sitting in this one place, and then these other ones are kind of far away. Another technique that’s used for carnivores is camera trapping. It’s like a little camera that basically you put out in the field and usually tie it to a post or to a tree. And it is motion activated. So, when something moves in front of it, it takes a picture, you take your cameras down, and then you have to spend literally weeks going through every single picture trying to find ones that are helpful and like classifying it by the species that you’re seeing.

Dr Cylita Guy 16:52
When we were out radio tracking our bats, every bat that we put a radio tag on, we give them a little name, mostly to amuse ourselves at 3am. Because what else do you do that early in the morning? Do you have a particular story of a very like elusive creature and I’m kind of wondering if you can take us through one of your own kinds of nature detective stories?

Gabi Fleury 17:11
Yeah, so when I was working in Amboseli, so Southern Kenya, there was this one renowned crop raider. His name was Tim. So, Tim had been like one of the long-term studies in Amboseli National Park. He would cross out of the National Park and just basically go into people’s gardens and eat all their maize for funsies, he had plenty of food. So the organization that I was helping out, that was kind of my first internship ever was with Big Life Foundation. So they would go out in the middle of the night, in these cars, to basically like, go see Tim and see what Tim was doing, because Tim was always doing something horrible. And essentially, what he would do is like, they’d go out to Tim, they’d make a loud noise, they’d like, you know, hammer on pots and pans. They’d be like ‘get out of here Tim!’ and Tim would literally, just because he was so used to people yelling at him, he would just kind of very quietly go behind the line of cars, and then just go into the next person’s garden and start eating their maize.

Dr. Kaylee Byers 18:08
And the kicker, this sly creature named Tim was an elephant.

Gabi Fleury 18:16
He was an extremely, extremely naughty elephant, and he actually died of natural causes a couple of years ago. So, for an animal that had that amount of ivory on him that he was able to die of natural causes, of old age, was incredible. So, when I think of just kind of like an elusive kind of tricksy extremely intelligent animal, like the first thing that pops in my head is Tim.

Dr. Cylita Guy 18:37
I want to take a step back here. And I think this story of Tim, you know, going in and reading farmer’s crops is a nice kind of stepping point. I want to build out this bigger story of conflict between, you know, wild animals and us humans, and how do you navigate those difficult, you know, relationships and conversations and interests between governments, local communities and the wildlife themselves?

Gabi Fleury 19:00
Yeah, that’s really, really difficult. I like to call myself kind of like an ‘interspecies diplomat’, right? So, there are the needs of the animal to be able to use landscape. But then there’s also the need of the community to have their livelihood taken care of. And the big thing that I’ve learned, you know, working in different communities is that you can’t really assume you have the same goals. Yeah, I love cheetahs. They’re not eating my goats. I don’t have to worry about the safety of my kids walking to school. So I can’t, I will never be able to fully understand that. But trying to think from their perspective is really important.
So, for example, in Namibia, we had this farmer that was shooting jackals. He was like the top jackal shooter guy in the area. And of course, like we didn’t want him to shoot jackals, but we can’t just walk up to him and be like, “I’m a conservationist, see the cute little cheetah on my shirt. Please don’t shoot jackals. They’re cute.” Like, they’re not gonna care, right? They’re like “they’re eating my sheep, they gotta go”. So how I spoke to him was using the biology and like what I knew about how animals functioned and telling him the truth, which is if you shoot jackals, jackals breed faster. Jackals make more jackals; you’ll get twice as many jackals. And then he goes, “Oh, I don’t want to do that!”
But also trying to understand, kind of like, where does the animosity come from? Does it come from the fact that they’re eating their livestock, maybe a little? But that’s not really as simple as it seems. It could come from experiences they’ve had in the past. It could come from kind of that political ecology aspect. It could come from how culturally they see different carnivore species. So understanding kind of like how people perceive carnivores, and how the perception of threat doesn’t always equal the actual reality. But it doesn’t really matter if that’s what the belief is. So that’s kind of the really complex space where I work.

Dr. Kaylee Byers 20:50
Gabi, the interspecies diplomat. While in many places around the world, Gabi works between locals whose livelihood depends on their land and livestock, and the big cats and other predators like hyenas and jackals with large ranges throughout Africa, the stakes are high; lives are literally on the line. Navigating how to balance conservation with local safety and the economy of a region, as well as the various interests of local governments… That’s not a simple task. But it’s a really important one.

Dr. Cylita Guy 21:26
And honestly, clearly, you know, this task is made, I think, far more difficult by the fact that a lot of these creatures don’t like to be found. But luckily, you know, researchers like Gabi carry a particular genomic secret weapon up their sleeve.

Dr. Kaylee Byers 21:45
You’re listening to Nice Genes! A podcast all about the fascinating world of genomics and the evolving science behind it, brought to you by Genome British Columbia. I’m Dr. Kaylee Byers, your host, and I have a quick favour to ask you. If you’re liking the show, hit follow on Apple podcasts or wherever you get your shows. And stick with me as I continue this genomic journey. Leave a review and tell a friend about us. It really helps the show make a scientific splash.

So what’s one way to find big cats, bats and even rats without actually seeing them? Well, to begin answering that, we’re going to have to get our hands a little bit dirty and talk about scat. Gabi, what the scat is that?

Gabi Fleury 22:32
Yeah, so scat is poop. And it’s something that biologists, especially carnivore biologists, we get incredibly excited about. Like you’ll never see a bunch of biologists more happy when we see scat of animal that we haven’t seen for a while. We’re like, oh, we drop to our knees, and we’re like, “look at this!”

Dr. Kaylee Byers 22:46
Yeah, I love that. You mentioned being excited by it because I was quite literally surrounded by rat scat. So it was never like, wow, I finally have some. I was like, I have so much all the time.

Gabi Fleury 22:57
Yeah, we call it black gold, cheetah poop.

Dr. Kaylee Byers 22:59
So scat, it’s a yep, it’s feces, excrement, numero deux. Everybody poops, even our sneaky furry critters. But there’s more to it than just following a scat track straight to a leopard or cheetah. Gabi’s work takes us into this really fascinating field of science called ‘eDNA’, which is short for environmental DNA. Scientists can take samples from an ecosystem, whether that be soil or water, and observe the microscopic genetic material sitting in their sample. And they can use that to identify a whole suite of species that have been using that habitat, from bacteria to bugs to bats and even people. To explain how scientists go about doing that, I’ve brought in an early pioneer of eDNA, Dr. Eske Willerslev.

Dr. Eske Willerslev 23:52
[I’m a] Professor of ecology and evolution, here at University of Cambridge.

Dr. Kaylee Byers 23:55
Who is a world famous scientist and adventurer…

Dr. Eske Willerslev 23:58
But I do, to be honest, think it’s really the same thing. Science is adventurous.

Dr. Kaylee Byers 24:03
And one of the first people to use eDNA.

Dr. Eske Willerslev 24:06
Yeah, I mean, it’s actually interesting because it was an idea coming out of, you can say necessity, because I was a poor student. I didn’t have any grants or anything, and I wasn’t famous either. So I couldn’t get access to, you can say, interesting fossil remains. So this was obviously a problem. But I very much enjoyed the wilderness, so you can say I wanted to become an adventurer, and I went to Siberia for a number of expeditions in the early 90s. So then I remember I was sitting, it was in autumn, and I saw you know, leaves falling down from the trees and I saw a dog taking a crap on the street. And I kind of thought, you know, well, we know that there’s DNA in these things, right. But we also know that after next rainfall, the dark feces is kind of gone, dissolved. And after a few years, the leaves are gone. The question is, could the DNA be preserved, you know, in the sediments? And I remember I went to my supervisor, I went into the coffee room and said, “Well, I have this idea, maybe you know, the DNA from animals and plants can survive in the soil”. And he said, “Well, I’ve never heard anything as stupid”, and everybody in the room were laughing.
Because of my time in Siberia, right? I knew the permafrost, you know, the frozen ground. And we knew that, that if things are frozen, chemical processes slows down. So when I contacted a Russian guy called David Gilichinsky, but who worked actually in those areas where I was doing my expeditions in my early days, I asked him, “Could you come to Copenhagen and bring some of this permafrost with you?” And he said, “Yeah, I can do that”, so he came. And I thought, to be honest, I thought you needed very large amount of soil. Because I mean, what is the chance of an animal just walking on, you can see this tiny piece of soil, right? So first, I tried to freeze dry the soil to make it smaller, right, bringing out all the water, and it totally failed, it was a disaster. And at the end of the day, I just said, “Okay, let’s just try, you know, two grams of soil.” And I remember it was Christmas Day, and everybody had left, you know, the lab. I tried to amplify DNA with ‘universal mammalian primers’ and then ‘universal plant primers’. What it does is you are targeting a specific piece of DNA that, in principle, you should be able to get from all mammals and be able to distinguish them from each other. And the same for plants.
Now, I got the sequencing results. I put them into the gene bank while comparing your read to everything known in the database right at that time. And it just came out, bang, woolly mammoth, bang, horse, bison, lemming, hare, and various types of plants. It was incredible. I mean, it worked right? The question is, could it survive outside the permafrost? And I got some cave soil samples from New Zealand. And it just banged out with moa birds with these giant birds, like ostriches that got, that went extinct, you know, 1000s of years ago. We didn’t call it environmental DNA. We didn’t call it anything fancy like that. But the principle was shown, right? And then, after ten years, it kind of exploded, and, and it’s something that people are using, both in ancient settings and modern settings and so forth.
Yeah, who’s laughing now? Exactly.

Dr. Kaylee Byers 28:11
And so eDNA gives valuable insight into hard-to-find animals, even ones that aren’t around anymore. One of the applications that I’m especially excited about comes from a recent study that used eDNA to reveal the ‘richness’ of an ecosystem. And ‘richness’? Well, that’s the number of species in an area.

In February 2022, scientists published a study in the Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences. It compared how many species were recorded in tall eelgrass beds using two techniques. The scientists used either traditional netting techniques to catch species, or eDNA, which involves sequencing genetic samples from the water. When they tested those samples, they found that the eDNA identified nearly twice as many species living in those waters. That’s 129 species instead of just 59 found through the netting. And eDNA is also much less invasive. It shows the potential power of this sneaky way of identifying species without disrupting them and without even having to see them.
Okay, so I want to throw it back to both of you. How has this use of eDNA crept into your work? Gabi? Can we start with you? How have you used eDNA?

Gabi Fleury 29:54
Yeah, so I’m not a geneticist. I’m a conservation biologist, so I don’t actually do the analysis myself. But it’s important for, you know, getting a sense of what’s out there in the population and how healthy it is. So yeah, we use scat a lot. And the reason why it’s important is because, so animal poop passes through an animal and picks up genetic material along the way, and then it’s deposited somewhere. So a lot of the time, you know, we’re not able to see these animals, you know, and it’s, it’s a way to kind of also not interfere with them, right? It’s a way to not have to handle them. So by able, being able to find this scat and then being able to do genetic analysis on it, you can figure out the kind of individuals and start getting an idea of population, and population structure, as well as the health of the population.
So, cheetahs are actually really sensitive to inbreeding because she does actually went through a ‘genetic bottleneck’, you know, 1000s and 1000s. And 1000s. And 1000s of years ago, their population got so small, and then kind of had to build up from that point that they already are very sensitive to inbreeding, right? So, because of that kind of knowing what cats are in the area, not only can you kind of get a sense of the individuals, you can get a sense of how many animals are in there, and then extrapolate from that population structure, how many males? How many females? You know, things like that and get a sense of, is this a healthy population, right? And can this population continue to propagate without having those genetic issues?

Dr. Kaylee Byers 31:17
So you can see who’s there but also how well they’re doing or how healthy they are? And Cylita, I believe you have a story to share about eDNA and bats. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Dr. Cylita Guy 31:27
Yeah, and just start us off. I’m going to take us down to Brazil near the federal capital of Brasilia. Now, bats have a bad rep in Brazil; they’re everywhere. In a few locations, they even make up half of all the mammalian species in that location. Some folks relate to them as carriers of diseases like rabies. They’re hunted and can often die from consuming doses of pesticides sprayed on crops. But a couple of researchers weren’t convinced of the broad, villainous reputation over these bats was true. So, they decided to look into five distinct species of bats that were roosting in local city buildings. They had a hunch that the DNA samples from them, specifically from their poop, would help prove their innocence.
So, they set out a couple of nets and caught some bats, collected some samples and sequenced the material from their feces. Now, believe me, that’s an oversimplification of catching bats. But after looking through the DNA, their hypothesis bore some pretty exciting fruit. Forty-one different insect species were found in their stool, many of whom were nefarious pests in the surrounding farmland. Altogether, researchers estimate that these bats were eating enough bugs that every hectare of farmland was saving about 94 US dollars a year. Crunch a few numbers, and that adds up to Brazil annually saving $390.6 million? That’s enough money to make the cape crusader himself blush.

Dr. Kaylee Byers 33:04
That is a lot of dollars.

Gabi Fleury 33:06
Yeah.

Dr. Cylita Guy 33:07
And beyond just eating bad bugs, they were also helping with pollination and dispersing seeds. They’re like little agricultural workers just with wings.

Dr. Kaylee Byers 33:17
So what we really need is like a rebranding here for bats.

Dr. Cylita Guy 33:20
Bats, rats all those good creatures.

Dr. Kaylee Byers 33:23
As I mentioned earlier, finding these animals is really just one component to a much larger issue. Humans don’t always get along with the creatures wandering or flapping about this planet we all share. Gabi mentioned earlier how human-wildlife conflict management is really at the heart of their work.

Dr. Cylita Guy 33:42
And so, Gabi, I want to throw this back to you. Because this is really your world, you’ve expressed this kind of difficult position you’re in and having to be an advocate for the animals, but also the welfare of locals and their livelihood. And so, can you articulate the challenges you come across in this kind of human-wildlife conflict management space?

Gabi Fleury 34:02
Yeah, I think the biggest challenge is these people wanting to kill these carnivores, to be honest, or just wanting them off their land or not wanting to have much to do with them. And I think, you know, it’s an understandable thing. So, it’s trying to kind of come in not telling people how to manage their livestock, not coming in very heavy-handed, but kind of saying, like, “Look, I’m here to learn. I’m not from this community. You guys are the experts here about your land and your farming system and how things work. I’m just here to understand, to try to do some testing of different things that could potentially reduce the amount of livestock you lose”. Because the last thing I want to do is be a ‘parachute scientist’. And what essentially that means is, you know, you drop in somewhere, you collect your data you leave that isn’t helping them in any way. It’s me essentially utilizing their problem for my own personal gain, and that’s something I feel very ethically against. So by working with these on-the-ground organizations and collaborating with them, it’s important not to have an attitude of superiority going into these communities like “Oh, you know, like I have degrees, and I’m a scientist!” I tried to go into it thinking we’re all tools in the toolbox. I’m a wrench, I do wrench things, but sometimes you need a can opener. And then the wrench is useless, right? So it’s not better than anything else. So kind of going in knowing what you know, and knowing what you don’t know and knowing when you should step back and let other people speak.

Dr. Kaylee Byers 35:32
Through their research, Gabby was able to come up with a really clever way to help reduce conflict between humans and wildlife. So, Gabi, you created a video game to help locals identify predator attacks? What was its origin story?

Gabi Fleury 35:50
Yeah, so that was a really quirky project. So, the idea behind the video game came out where we know through anecdotally that interactive activity is a lot more engaging and important for people than you know, just kind of speaking to them about a problem. You’re engaging them interactively, is really important. So, we wanted it to be like anyone could play it and be able to understand it. One is, basically, there’s a livestock enclosure, and there’s something wrong with it. And you have a timer, and you have to identify what’s wrong with the livestock enclosure, because if you don’t in time, there’s actually a consequence. So, if the door is on its hinges, a hyena gets in, if it’s underneath a tree, and there’s no covering, a leopard jumps down, so you can kind of see iteratively, you know, how to make a good life second closure.
And the other is I call CSI like Carnivores, CSI Savanna, where essentially, you see like a cartoon, cow or sheep that’s had, you know, a couple of bites taken out of it. And you have scat, and then you have tracks, and you have to identify out of a lineup of carnivores, which is the one that did it. And as you get them right over time, you start to identify, “Oh, if it’s this kind of scat, it’s this animal”. And the reason why that’s important is that you know, for example, for farmers calling in about a conflict instance, a lot of the time what will happen is they’ll be like, “I had this cheetah that leapt out of this tree and ate my calf”. And I’m like, “That absolutely did not happen. No way!” You know, because it’s just not something that cheetahs do. So, if they know they have a leopard, then we now know we’re dealing with a leopard problem. Now that cheetah problem and it’s you can adjust to that.

Dr. Kaylee Byers 37:34
Where do you think the path forward is into building those relationships between us and the wild animals around us?

Dr. Cylita Guy 37:39
I will say that I like thinking specifically about that city landscape, and again, my own work with bats, but also, that education piece, I think is really important. And that understanding helping people to understand the value of these creatures, especially ones like bats that are misunderstood. I think that’s a really big, big part of that, right? And Gabi hearing about your video game, and that kind of unintended consequences that, you know, we don’t always anticipate when we take a certain action, I think helping people understand and see that bigger picture and appreciate even though they may be annoyed by some of the wildlife that they encounter, which again, I think that education is a really important component and can go a very long way to help.

Gabi Fleury 38:24
And also, just coming from a practical perspective is that we can’t expect communities to just accept dangerous animals on their land by telling them they’re cool. So, a lot of is also kind of the instrumental aspect of reducing conflict from a very kind of basic, actually reducing conflict instances is really important. Because only once we start doing that can we start to kind of heal that perception? But again, I always think education is fantastic. But if it’s like a life or death situation or a livelihood situation, I do think, you know, that very practical aspect has to also be dealt with. So it’s also it’s the emotional aspect that you’re dealing with and the practical aspect. And there’s never going to be a silver bullet for human-wildlife conflict. It’s never going to be something that’s going to be 100% solved.

Dr. Cylita Guy 39:10
Gabi, you are clearly super passionate about what you do, which I think is amazing. But I know becoming a conservationist, and you know, becoming a scientist, can be a very daunting and overwhelming task. So, do you have any kind of practical tips for how someone who’s interested in this line of work can get started and kind of make their own space?

Gabi Fleury 39:29
Yeah, there’s so many different paths you can take in conservation. So, one thing I always, I tell people quite early is research a lot of different people that have jobs that you’re interested in. And that’s something I did as an undergrad, I looked at the literature for carnivore conservation in Sub-Saharan Africa. And there were like 13 names that kept popping up again and again and again. I’m like, I will become best friends with all of those people and figure out exactly how they got into that field.
But another thing I’d like to stress is that A lot of people think in terms of conservation as you have to be a scientist. And yeah, we always need great biologists. I’m a biologist, I love biology, but we need really good graphic designers. We need really good environmental attorneys. We need really good people in government and advocacy. We need people who are good fundraisers. We need entertainers and journalists; we need all these people who care about conservation in their fields. So I think I always will tell people, you know, if you’re not into science, it’s okay. If you care about wildlife, you can apply whatever you want to do for a profession to wildlife. So don’t feel limited kind of by thinking you have to go that very traditional path, if that’s not for you.

Dr. Kaylee Byers 40:39
So, Gabi Fleury, what a treat, what a treasure. Thank you for joining Cylita and I today.

Gabi Fleury 40:50
Yeah, thank you so much for having me. I had a wonderful conversation with you all.

Dr. Kaylee Byers 41:23
Hopefully, with tools like eDNA and other genomic tricks, we’ll be better able to understand all of the species that we share our planet with and how we can be better interspecies community members.

Dr. Cylita Guy 41:34
Yeah. And I feel like talking to Gabi really puts into perspective why that is so important, not just to preserve all these wonderful and beautiful species. But you know that preservation has benefits to our ecosystems as a whole. So it’s good to have them around all the time.

Dr. Kaylee Byers 41:50
So Cylita, would you do me the honours of ending us off for today?

Dr. Cylita Guy 41:54
Oh, it would be my pleasure, Kaylee. You’ve been listening to Nice Genes! A podcast brought to you by Genome British Columbia. If you liked this episode, go check out some of the previous ones and also follow the show to catch new episodes coming up. You can also message the show by direct messaging @GenomeBC on Twitter.

Dr. Kaylee Byers 42:14
And I just wanted to add that the education team at Genome BC have put together some learn-a-longs so you can dive into all the fun topics we cover and explore the world of genomics for yourself. You can find them in our show notes, not just for this episode but all our episodes. And thanks for being with us today. Dr. Cylita Guy. We mentioned you have a book early in the episode, so if listeners are interested in learning more about urban ecology, go check out ‘Chasing Bats and Tracking Rats: Urban Ecology, Community Science and How We Share Our Cities’. Thanks again for joining me.

Dr. Cylita Guy 42:48
Oh, it was my pleasure. And you know that I’m always looking for more opportunities to reunite Rat Woman and Bat Girl.

Dr. Kaylee Byers 42:56
We’re in a book, we’re on a podcast. What’s next?

Dr. Cylita Guy 42:59
Deep sea?

Dr. Kaylee Byers 42:59
Yes!

Dr. Cylita Guy 43:00
Deep sea exploration.

Dr. Kaylee Byers 43:00
Deep sea exploration.

Dr. Cylita Guy 43:01
Let’s put a pin in that one.

Dr. Kaylee Byers 43:03
It sounds great.

Join us on our next episode discussing the science behind our genes and ancestry. What’s fact? What’s myth?

Shawn Hercules 43:18
Are our genomic portraits really so different from each other when it comes to things like race?

Dr. Janina Jeff 43:18
Yeah, so this is my favourite bar to drop like on any stage. If I’m with kindergarteners, I’m saying it. If I with Ph.D. students, I’m saying it, which is that genetically we are 99.9% the same.

Dr Kaylee Byers 43:42
Follow us on Apple podcast or wherever you get your shows. And until then, thanks for listening!

[/et_pb_toggle][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][et_pb_row custom_padding_last_edited=”on|phone” _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” width=”100%” max_width=”100%” custom_padding=”|||50px|false|false” custom_padding_tablet=”|||50px|false|false” custom_padding_phone=”|||0px|false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text” _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” header_2_font=”Titillium Web|300||on|||||” header_2_text_color=”#FFFFFF” header_2_font_size=”43px” custom_padding=”100px|||220px|false|false” custom_padding_tablet=”30px|||0px|false|false” custom_padding_phone=”20px|||0px|false|false” custom_padding_last_edited=”on|phone” header_2_text_align_tablet=”center” header_2_text_align_phone=”center” header_2_text_align_last_edited=”on|tablet” header_2_font_size_tablet=”34px” header_2_font_size_phone=”34px” header_2_font_size_last_edited=”on|phone” global_colors_info=”{}”]

Did you like this episode? Then you should listen to…

[/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][et_pb_row column_structure=”1_3,2_3″ use_custom_gutter=”on” make_equal=”on” custom_padding_last_edited=”on|phone” _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” background_image=”https://www.genomebc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Group-12.png” background_size=”contain” background_position=”top_center” width=”85%” width_tablet=”100%” width_phone=”100%” width_last_edited=”on|phone” max_width=”85%” max_width_tablet=”100%” max_width_phone=”100%” max_width_last_edited=”on|tablet” custom_margin=”||||false|false” custom_padding=”0px|55px|0px|55px|false|true” custom_padding_tablet=”0px|55px|0px|55px|false|true” custom_padding_phone=”|25px||25px|false|true” background_last_edited=”on|desktop” background_size_phone=”contain” locked=”off” global_colors_info=”{}” custom_css_main_element_last_edited=”on|tablet” custom_css_main_element_tablet=”display:flex;flex-direction:column;” custom_css_main_element_phone=”.”][et_pb_column type=”1_3″ _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_image src=”https://www.genomebc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/S1E4-Cover-Art.png” title_text=”S1E4 – Cover Art” align=”center” _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” width=”100%” width_tablet=”300px” width_phone=”100%” width_last_edited=”on|phone” max_width=”580px” max_width_tablet=”” max_width_phone=”100%” max_width_last_edited=”on|phone” module_alignment=”center” custom_padding=”||0px||false|false” module_alignment_tablet=”center” module_alignment_phone=”left” module_alignment_last_edited=”on|tablet” global_colors_info=”{}”][/et_pb_image][/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”2_3″ _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_text disabled_on=”off|off|off” _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”Titillium Web||||||||” text_text_color=”#FFFFFF” text_font_size=”16px” text_line_height=”1.3em” width=”100%” max_width=”600px” custom_margin=”||0px||false|false” custom_padding=”25px||||false|false” custom_padding_tablet=”25px|0px|||false|false” custom_padding_phone=”25px|0px|||false|false” custom_padding_last_edited=”on|tablet” hover_enabled=”0″ text_font_size_tablet=”24px” text_font_size_last_edited=”off|desktop” text_orientation_tablet=”” text_orientation_phone=”center” text_orientation_last_edited=”on|phone” module_alignment_tablet=”left” module_alignment_phone=”center” module_alignment_last_edited=”on|tablet” global_colors_info=”{}” sticky_enabled=”0″]

EPISODE 4

[/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” header_font=”Titillium Web|900|||||||” header_text_color=”#FFFFFF” header_font_size=”48px” header_3_font=”Titillium Web|900||on|||||” header_3_text_color=”#FFFFFF” header_3_font_size=”32px” header_3_letter_spacing=”1px” max_width=”100%” custom_margin=”10px||0px||false|false” header_text_align_tablet=”” header_text_align_phone=”center” header_text_align_last_edited=”on|phone” header_font_size_tablet=”34px” header_font_size_phone=”34px” header_font_size_last_edited=”on|tablet” header_3_font_size_tablet=”28px” header_3_font_size_phone=”28px” header_3_font_size_last_edited=”on|tablet” header_text_shadow_style=”preset1″ header_text_shadow_vertical_length=”0.13em” header_text_shadow_blur_strength=”0.16em” header_text_shadow_color=”rgba(0,0,0,0.62)” global_colors_info=”{}”]

Decoding Ancestry: Race is Not Genetic

[/et_pb_text][et_pb_text disabled_on=”off|off|off” _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”Titillium Web|||on|||||” text_text_color=”#FFFFFF” text_font_size=”20px” text_line_height=”1.3em” max_width=”100%” custom_margin=”||20px||false|false” custom_padding=”5px|11%|||false|false” custom_padding_tablet=”5px|0px|||false|false” custom_padding_phone=”5px|0px|30px||false|false” custom_padding_last_edited=”on|tablet” text_font_size_tablet=”24px” text_font_size_last_edited=”off|desktop” text_orientation_tablet=”” text_orientation_phone=”center” text_orientation_last_edited=”on|phone” global_colors_info=”{}”]

Co-host: Dr. Shawn Hercules, Postdoctoral researcher at McMaster University
Guest: Dr. Janina M. Jeff, American Geneticist and Executive Producer of ‘In Those Genes’

[/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https://www.genomebc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Group-6.png” title_text=”Group 6″ url=”@ET-DC@eyJkeW5hbWljIjp0cnVlLCJjb250ZW50IjoicG9zdF9saW5rX3VybF9wb3N0Iiwic2V0dGluZ3MiOnsicG9zdF9pZCI6IjE5OTI1In19@” _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _dynamic_attributes=”url” _module_preset=”default” custom_margin=”||||false|false” custom_padding=”0px||||false|false” locked=”off” global_colors_info=”{}”][/et_pb_image][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][/et_pb_section][et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ custom_padding_last_edited=”on|tablet” _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” background_image=”https://www.genomebc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/denim_bg-1.png” parallax=”on” parallax_method=”off” width=”100%” max_width=”100%” custom_margin=”||-26px|||” custom_padding=”|0px|25px|0px|false|false” custom_padding_tablet=”||25px|25px|false|false” custom_padding_phone=”0px||25px|25px|false|false” global_module=”19967″ saved_tabs=”all” locked=”off” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_row column_structure=”1_3,1_3,1_3″ use_custom_gutter=”on” gutter_width=”1″ _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” width=”85%” max_width=”85%” module_alignment=”center” global_colors_info=”{}” custom_css_main_element_last_edited=”on|phone”][et_pb_column type=”1_3″ _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_image src=”https://www.genomebc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Group-17.png” title_text=”Group 17″ align_tablet=”center” align_phone=”center” align_last_edited=”on|tablet” disabled_on=”off|off|on” _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” width=”400px” width_tablet=”400px” width_phone=”100%” width_last_edited=”on|phone” max_width=”400px” max_width_tablet=”400px” max_width_phone=”100%” max_width_last_edited=”on|phone” custom_margin=”||30px||false|false” custom_padding_tablet=”” custom_padding_phone=”30px||||false|false” custom_padding_last_edited=”on|phone” global_colors_info=”{}”][/et_pb_image][et_pb_image src=”https://www.genomebc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/genomebc_logo-1.png” title_text=”genomebc_logo 1″ _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” width=”250px” max_width=”250px” custom_margin=”70px||||false|false” custom_margin_tablet=”0px||||false|false” custom_margin_phone=”0px||||false|false” custom_margin_last_edited=”on|tablet” module_alignment_tablet=”center” module_alignment_phone=”center” module_alignment_last_edited=”on|tablet” global_colors_info=”{}”][/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”Roboto||||||||” text_text_color=”#FFFFFF” text_font_size=”17px” text_line_height=”1.3em” custom_margin=”25px||||false|false” text_orientation_tablet=”center” text_orientation_phone=”center” text_orientation_last_edited=”on|tablet” global_colors_info=”{}”]

400–575 West 8th Avenue
Vancouver, BC V5Z 0C4 Canada

Host: Kaylee Byers

Creative Director: Jen Moss
Strategy: Roger Nairn
Producer: Sean Holden
Content Creator: Phoebe Melvin
Audio Engineer: Patrick Emile
Cover Art Designer: Amanda Di Genova

[/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][et_pb_row column_structure=”1_3,2_3″ use_custom_gutter=”on” gutter_width=”1″ disabled_on=”on|off|off” _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” width=”85%” max_width=”85%” module_alignment=”center” custom_margin=”-90px||||false|false” custom_margin_tablet=”0px||||false|false” custom_margin_phone=”-50px||||false|false” custom_margin_last_edited=”on|tablet” custom_padding=”0px||||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”1_3″ _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”2_3″ _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” custom_padding=”|190px|||false|false” custom_padding_tablet=”|0px|||false|false” custom_padding_phone=”|0px|||false|false” custom_padding_last_edited=”on|tablet” custom_css_main_element=”display:flex;||” global_colors_info=”{}” custom_css_main_element_last_edited=”on|tablet” custom_css_main_element_tablet=”display:flex;justify-content:center;” custom_css_main_element_phone=”display:flex;justify-content:center;”][et_pb_image src=”https://www.genomebc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Apple-Podcasts-2.png” title_text=”Apple Podcasts 2″ url=”https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/nice-genes/id1622851335″ url_new_window=”on” _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” width=”400px” max_width=”400px” custom_margin_tablet=”|10px|||false|false” custom_margin_phone=”|10px|||false|false” custom_margin_last_edited=”on|tablet” global_colors_info=”{}”][/et_pb_image][et_pb_image src=”https://www.genomebc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Google-Podcasts-2.png” title_text=”Google Podcasts 2″ url=”https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9vbW55LmZtL3Nob3dzL25pY2UtZ2VuZXMvcGxheWxpc3RzL3BvZGNhc3QucnNz” url_new_window=”on” _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” width=”400px” max_width=”400px” custom_padding_tablet=”|10px|||false|false” custom_padding_phone=”|10px|||false|false” custom_padding_last_edited=”on|tablet” global_colors_info=”{}”][/et_pb_image][et_pb_image src=”https://www.genomebc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Spotify-2.png” title_text=”Spotify 2″ url=”https://open.spotify.com/show/1QMp75HRv58202xP8HrOwN?si=0d5b10d694084983&nd=1″ url_new_window=”on” align_tablet=”center” align_phone=”center” align_last_edited=”on|tablet” _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” width=”400px” max_width=”400px” custom_margin_tablet=”||||false|false” custom_margin_phone=”||||false|false” custom_margin_last_edited=”on|tablet” custom_padding=”|0px|||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”][/et_pb_image][et_pb_image src=”https://www.genomebc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Amazon-Music-2.png” title_text=”Amazon Music 2″ url=”https://music.amazon.ca/podcasts/a347275a-ce02-4d68-ba97-b9e75d86f9ff/nice-genes” url_new_window=”on” _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” width=”400px” max_width=”400px” global_colors_info=”{}”][/et_pb_image][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][et_pb_row custom_padding_last_edited=”on|phone” disabled_on=”off|on|on” _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” custom_margin=”||||false|false” custom_padding_tablet=”” custom_padding_phone=”0px||0px||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” custom_padding=”|25px|||false|false” custom_css_main_element=”display:flex;” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_image src=”https://www.genomebc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Apple-Podcasts-2.png” title_text=”Apple Podcasts 2″ url=”https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/nice-genes/id1622851335″ url_new_window=”on” _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” width=”400px” max_width=”400px” custom_margin_tablet=”|10px|||false|false” custom_margin_phone=”|10px|||false|false” custom_margin_last_edited=”on|tablet” global_colors_info=”{}”][/et_pb_image][et_pb_image src=”https://www.genomebc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Google-Podcasts-2.png” title_text=”Google Podcasts 2″ url=”https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9vbW55LmZtL3Nob3dzL25pY2UtZ2VuZXMvcGxheWxpc3RzL3BvZGNhc3QucnNz” url_new_window=”on” _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” width=”400px” max_width=”400px” custom_padding_tablet=”|10px|||false|false” custom_padding_phone=”|10px|||false|false” custom_padding_last_edited=”on|tablet” global_colors_info=”{}”][/et_pb_image][et_pb_image src=”https://www.genomebc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Spotify-2.png” title_text=”Spotify 2″ url=”https://open.spotify.com/show/1QMp75HRv58202xP8HrOwN?si=0d5b10d694084983&nd=1″ url_new_window=”on” _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” width=”400px” max_width=”400px” custom_margin_tablet=”||||false|false” custom_margin_phone=”||||false|false” custom_margin_last_edited=”on|tablet” custom_padding=”|10px|||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”][/et_pb_image][et_pb_image src=”https://www.genomebc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Amazon-Music-2.png” title_text=”Amazon Music 2″ url=”https://music.amazon.ca/podcasts/a347275a-ce02-4d68-ba97-b9e75d86f9ff/nice-genes” url_new_window=”on” _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” width=”400px” max_width=”400px” global_colors_info=”{}”][/et_pb_image][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][et_pb_row column_structure=”3_5,2_5″ use_custom_gutter=”on” custom_padding_last_edited=”on|tablet” _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” width=”100%” max_width=”100%” custom_margin=”-17px||||false|false” custom_padding=”0px||0px|8%|false|false” custom_padding_tablet=”0px||0px|0%|false|false” custom_padding_phone=”0px||0px|0%|false|false” module_alignment_tablet=”center” module_alignment_phone=”center” module_alignment_last_edited=”on|tablet” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”3_5″ _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”Roboto||||||||” text_text_color=”#FFFFFF” text_font_size=”17px” text_line_height=”1.3em” module_alignment=”center” custom_margin=”25px||||false|false” custom_padding=”||||false|false” custom_padding_tablet=”|30px||0px|false|false” custom_padding_phone=”|10%|||false|false” custom_padding_last_edited=”on|tablet” text_orientation_tablet=”center” text_orientation_phone=”center” text_orientation_last_edited=”on|tablet” global_colors_info=”{}”]

Genome BC respectfully acknowledges that our office space is located on the unceded traditional territories of the Coast Salish peoples, including the territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) and Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) Nations, the traditional custodians of these lands.

[/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”Roboto||||||||” text_text_color=”#FFFFFF” text_font_size=”17px” text_line_height=”1.3em” link_font=”Roboto||||||||” link_text_color=”#FFFFFF” custom_margin=”25px||||false|false” custom_padding=”|0px|||false|false” custom_padding_tablet=”|30px|||false|false” custom_padding_phone=”|0%|||false|false” custom_padding_last_edited=”on|tablet” text_orientation_tablet=”center” text_orientation_phone=”center” text_orientation_last_edited=”on|tablet” global_colors_info=”{}”]

[/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”2_5″ _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_text disabled_on=”off|off|on” _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”Roboto||||||||” text_text_color=”#FFFFFF” text_font_size=”17px” text_line_height=”1.3em” module_alignment=”center” custom_margin=”25px||||false|false” custom_padding=”||||false|false” custom_padding_tablet=”|30px||0px|false|false” custom_padding_phone=”|10%|||false|false” custom_padding_last_edited=”on|tablet” text_orientation_tablet=”center” text_orientation_phone=”center” text_orientation_last_edited=”on|tablet” global_colors_info=”{}”]

Host: Kaylee Byers

Creative Director: Jen Moss
Strategy: Roger Nairn
Producer: Sean Holden
Content Creator: Phoebe Melvin
Audio Engineer: Patrick Emile
Cover Art Designer: Amanda Di Genova

[/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][/et_pb_section]

episodes | genomebc.ca

EPISODE 2

[/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” header_font=”Titillium Web|900|||||||” header_text_color=”#FFFFFF” header_font_size=”46px” header_letter_spacing=”1px” max_width=”600px” custom_margin=”10px||0px||false|false” header_text_align_tablet=”” header_text_align_phone=”center” header_text_align_last_edited=”on|phone” header_font_size_tablet=”34px” header_font_size_phone=”34px” header_font_size_last_edited=”on|tablet” global_colors_info=”{}”]

THE RIGHT MEDS: CAN GENOMICS FIND THE PERFECT ANTIDEPRESSANT FOR YOUR BODY

[/et_pb_text][et_pb_text disabled_on=”off|off|off” _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”Titillium Web||||||||” text_text_color=”#FFFFFF” text_font_size=”36px” text_line_height=”1.3em” max_width=”600px” custom_margin=”||||false|false” custom_padding=”5px|11%|||false|false” custom_padding_tablet=”5px|0px|||false|false” custom_padding_phone=”5px|0px|30px||false|false” custom_padding_last_edited=”on|tablet” text_font_size_tablet=”24px” text_font_size_phone=”24px” text_font_size_last_edited=”on|tablet” text_orientation_tablet=”” text_orientation_phone=”center” text_orientation_last_edited=”on|phone” global_colors_info=”{}”]

GUEST: GENETIC COUNSELLOR DR. JEHANNINE AUSTIN

[/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_2″ _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_image src=”https://www.genomebc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/S1E2-Cover-Art.png” title_text=”S1E2 Cover Art” _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” width=”100%” width_tablet=”300px” width_phone=”100%” width_last_edited=”on|phone” max_width=”580px” max_width_tablet=”” max_width_phone=”100%” max_width_last_edited=”on|phone” module_alignment=”center” custom_padding=”||0px||false|false” module_alignment_tablet=”left” module_alignment_phone=”left” module_alignment_last_edited=”on|tablet” global_colors_info=”{}”][/et_pb_image][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][et_pb_row custom_padding_last_edited=”on|phone” _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” width=”90%” max_width=”90%” custom_padding=”|50px||50px|false|true” custom_padding_tablet=”|50px||50px|false|true” custom_padding_phone=”30px|0px|0px|0px|false|true” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]

[/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][et_pb_row use_custom_gutter=”on” gutter_width=”1″ disabled_on=”off|off|off” _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” width=”40%” width_tablet=”100%” width_phone=”100%” width_last_edited=”on|tablet” max_width=”40%” max_width_tablet=”70%” max_width_phone=”94%” max_width_last_edited=”on|tablet” custom_margin=”15px||||false|false” custom_padding=”0px||||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” custom_padding=”|0px|||false|false” custom_css_main_element=”display:flex;||” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_image src=”https://www.genomebc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Apple-Podcasts-1.png” title_text=”Apple Podcasts 1″ url=”https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/nice-genes/id1622851335″ url_new_window=”on” _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” width=”80%” custom_margin=”0px|10px|||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”][/et_pb_image][et_pb_image src=”https://www.genomebc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Google-Podcasts-1.webp” title_text=”Google Podcasts 1″ url=”https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9vbW55LmZtL3Nob3dzL25pY2UtZ2VuZXMvcGxheWxpc3RzL3BvZGNhc3QucnNz” url_new_window=”on” _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” width=”80%” custom_margin=”0px|10px|||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”][/et_pb_image][et_pb_image src=”https://www.genomebc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Spotify-1.png” title_text=”Spotify 1″ url=”https://open.spotify.com/show/1QMp75HRv58202xP8HrOwN?si=0d5b10d694084983&nd=1″ url_new_window=”on” _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” width=”80%” custom_margin=”|10px|||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”][/et_pb_image][et_pb_image src=”https://www.genomebc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Amazon-Music-1.png” title_text=”Amazon Music 1″ url=”https://music.amazon.ca/podcasts/a347275a-ce02-4d68-ba97-b9e75d86f9ff/nice-genes” url_new_window=”on” _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” width=”80%” custom_margin=”||||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”][/et_pb_image][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” width=”100%” max_width=”1600px” custom_padding=”|55px||55px|false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” header_font=”Titillium Web|900|||||||” header_text_color=”#FFFFFF” header_font_size=”48px” header_3_font=”Titillium Web|900||on|||||” header_3_text_color=”#FFFFFF” header_3_font_size=”48px” header_3_letter_spacing=”1px” max_width=”1300px” module_alignment=”right” custom_margin=”10px||0px||false|false” header_text_align_tablet=”” header_text_align_phone=”center” header_text_align_last_edited=”on|phone” header_font_size_tablet=”34px” header_font_size_phone=”34px” header_font_size_last_edited=”on|tablet” header_3_font_size_tablet=”34px” header_3_font_size_phone=”34px” header_3_font_size_last_edited=”on|tablet” locked=”off” global_colors_info=”{}”]

“We really need better and more effective ways to help people that live with psychiatric illnesses …”

[/et_pb_text][et_pb_text disabled_on=”off|off|off” _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”Titillium Web||||||||” text_text_color=”#FFFFFF” text_font_size=”36px” text_line_height=”1.3em” width=”100%” max_width=”1300px” module_alignment=”right” custom_margin=”||||false|false” custom_padding=”0px||||false|false” custom_padding_tablet=”25px|0px|||false|false” custom_padding_phone=”25px|0px|||false|false” custom_padding_last_edited=”on|tablet” text_font_size_tablet=”24px” text_font_size_phone=”24px” text_font_size_last_edited=”on|tablet” module_alignment_tablet=”left” module_alignment_phone=”center” module_alignment_last_edited=”off|desktop” locked=”off” global_colors_info=”{}”]

– DR. JEHANNINE AUSTIN

[/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” header_font=”Titillium Web|900|||||||” header_text_color=”#FFFFFF” header_font_size=”48px” header_3_font=”Titillium Web|900||on|||||” header_3_text_color=”#FFFFFF” header_3_font_size=”48px” max_width=”1300px” module_alignment=”right” custom_margin=”50px||5px||false|false” header_text_align_tablet=”” header_text_align_phone=”center” header_text_align_last_edited=”on|phone” header_font_size_tablet=”34px” header_font_size_phone=”34px” header_font_size_last_edited=”on|tablet” header_3_font_size_tablet=”34px” header_3_font_size_phone=”34px” header_3_font_size_last_edited=”on|tablet” locked=”off” global_colors_info=”{}”]

in this episode

This episode discusses mental health and mental illness. If you, or someone you know, needs support, call the BC Mental Health Support Line at 310-6789 or find Canada-wide resources right here.

The world of pharmacology helps a lot of people manage mental health conditions such as depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia. But, frankly, it can often be a bumpy road to discover the right medication for your body.

Dr. Kaylee Byers speaks with award-winning Genetic Counselor Dr. Jehannine Austin on how pharmaco-genomics is taking the guesswork out of prescriptions by observing your unique DNA blueprint. Spitting in tubes, traversing the ‘Dark Genome’ and navigating mountains of optimistic (and not so optimistic) data may just hold the key to unlocking the enigmas of genomic science and psychiatry.

With special appearances from Behavioral Neuroendocrinologist Dr. Travis Hodges and pharmaco-genomic testing partner Lisa Ridgway, we discuss the lived experiences and behavioral indicators of those living with complex mental health ailments.

Listen to Nice Genes! wherever you get your podcasts, brought to you by Genome British Columbia.

[/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” header_font=”Titillium Web|900|||||||” header_text_color=”#FFFFFF” header_font_size=”48px” header_3_font=”Titillium Web|900||on|||||” header_3_text_color=”#FFFFFF” header_3_font_size=”48px” max_width=”1300px” module_alignment=”right” custom_margin=”50px||5px||false|false” header_text_align_tablet=”” header_text_align_phone=”center” header_text_align_last_edited=”on|phone” header_font_size_tablet=”34px” header_font_size_phone=”34px” header_font_size_last_edited=”on|tablet” header_3_font_size_tablet=”34px” header_3_font_size_phone=”34px” header_3_font_size_last_edited=”on|tablet” locked=”off” global_colors_info=”{}”]

Highlights

4:46 – 8:10 “A project to give the right meds for our mental health using genomics.”
19:35 – 21:48 “Exploring the microcosmos of the Dark Genome.”
26:34 – 29:23 “A divided room. Experts react to the data of pharmacogenomics.”

[/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” header_font=”Titillium Web|900|||||||” header_text_color=”#FFFFFF” header_font_size=”48px” header_3_font=”Titillium Web|900||on|||||” header_3_text_color=”#FFFFFF” header_3_font_size=”48px” max_width=”1300px” module_alignment=”right” custom_margin=”50px||5px||false|false” header_text_align_tablet=”” header_text_align_phone=”center” header_text_align_last_edited=”on|phone” header_font_size_tablet=”34px” header_font_size_phone=”34px” header_font_size_last_edited=”on|tablet” header_3_font_size_tablet=”34px” header_3_font_size_phone=”34px” header_3_font_size_last_edited=”on|tablet” locked=”off” global_colors_info=”{}”]

Resources

[/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”Roboto||||||||” text_text_color=”#FFFFFF” text_line_height=”1.6em” max_width=”1300px” module_alignment=”right” global_colors_info=”{}”]

What is Pharmacogenomics?:

How it Works: What is Pharmacogenetics?

Exploring Pharmacogenomics in our Mental Health:

Pharmacogenomics for Depression Study

Congratulations to Dr. Jehannine Austin, Recipient of $1.5M in Funding to Explore Pharmacogenomic Testing in Clinical Settings

BC researchers are exploring the use of genomics to improve drug treatments for people with depression

Pharmacogenomics Guided Prescription Changes Improved Medication Effectiveness in Patients With Mental Health-Related Disability: A Retrospective Cohort Analyses

The genetics of depression: successful genome-wide association studies introduce new challenges

Dr. Travis Hodges, exploring behaviour in rats:

Patterns of Endocrine, Behavioural, and Neural Function Underlying Social Deficits after Social Instability Stress in Adolescent Rats

The Dark Genome:

The Mysterious 98%: Scientists Look to Shine Light on Our Dark Genome

A Dark Genome Link to Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder

Transcript

Dr. Travis Hodges 00:01
All right, so it is time to go into the lab. So, let’s head over.

Dr. Kaylee Byers 00:06
That’s Dr. Travis Hodges,

Dr. Travis Hodges 00:08
We will take the elevator up.

Dr. Kaylee Byers 00:12
Travis is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of British Columbia. He’s taking us through the laboratory of behavioural neuroendocrinology, where he does some of his research…

Dr. Travis Hodges 00:22

Well yes, so my main field of study is behavioural neuroscience. And it is all to do with depression. That’s what my research is related to, specifically looking at negative cognitive bias, so a cognitive symptom of depression.

Dr. Kaylee Byers 00:36

And his lab partners in that research, a few of my favourite furry friends.

Dr. Travis Hodges 00:46

Yes, I work with rats with my research. I’ve worked with rats for ten years now, really cute rats.

Dr. Kaylee Byers 00:55

As a resident rat detective myself, I’ve spent a lot of time around the wild relatives of these lab rats; we can learn so much from them, from diseases to genetics. In this case, Travis is looking at something else.

Dr. Travis Hodges 01:10

Yeah, my focus is behaviour, and then the mechanisms behind that behaviour.

[From inside the laboratory] And see that the boxes are ready, the lighting has turned on in the box. So a rat will soon enter…

For our task, what they do is, you have one context…

So we have a rat that is now inside the box.

…paired with something positive, like a food reward, things like that. You have another context paired with something negative; it could be anything, it could be a foot shock, it could be just cold, it could be anything, so they don’t like that context in particular. And you then give them in a context that looks a little bit like Context A (so a little bit like the positive one), and a little bit like Context B (so it looks a little bit like the negative one).

All right, so we have another rat that is in, kind of examining their situation to figure out how should they react in this situation. So, it’s like they have been previously they’ve been in a context before that they found is very negative. So, if it was a human, they’d go into a context finding that negative, they go into another context, it looks slightly…

The major goal of observing that behaviour is kind of giving underlying mechanisms and starting to lay the groundwork for looking at these mechanisms in humans. With this rat model that we developed, we’re able to look at a whole bunch of different mechanisms and see what are the parallels with what’s going on in humans in terms of treating those depressive-like behaviours.

All right, so we have a new rat that has been entered into the context. Again…

Dr. Kaylee Byers 02:48

Through his work, Travis aims to understand the early signs of humans developing mental health challenges, things like symptoms of stress, but also anxiety, or depression.

Dr. Travis Hodges 03:00

There’s 200+ symptoms of, especially when it comes to depression. So, there’s so many ways that we kind of display our depression after going through a very stressful situation, and they can manifest in so many different ways.

…alright, rotating around looking at everything…

Dr. Kaylee Byers 03:28

You’re listening to Nice Genes! a show all about unravelling the fascinating world of genomics, sponsored by Genome British Columbia. I’m your host, Dr. Kaylee Byers, your guide through the Microverse of genomes. In this episode, I’m going to take you through a story about some cutting-edge science that could have huge implications on the future of treatment for your health. If our opening rat segment wasn’t already an indicator, we’re going to look at how to better predict and treat mental health needs. And in the world of genomics, how your personal genome can be the key to provide targeted treatments for a host of mental health issues. Things like anxiety, depression, schizophrenia, and more.

Now, using our genome to guide medical treatments isn’t anything new. As early as the 1950s, scientists were already exploring the potential of genomes to inform medicine.

News Anchor 04:26

Through evolution, the environment selected the behaviours that survive in our genes.

Dr. Kaylee Byers 04:31

But in the field of psychiatry, using your genome to answer these deeper questions has remained a bit of an enigma. So, to explore this theme, I’ve brought in Dr. Jehannine Austin.

Dr. Jehannine Austin 04:37

Thank you so much, Kaylee. It’s nice to be here.

Dr. Kaylee Byers 04:40

For this topic. They’re part of a massive research project taking place, which asks the question, can our genome help improve our mental health?

Dr. Jehannine Austin 04:56

Yes, so the idea behind it is really to try and work out a very specific type of genetic testing which aims to help us understand what the best kind of psychiatric medication might be for a person.

Dr. Kaylee Byers 05:11

What is that based on, like trying to find, trying to find that approach?

Dr. Jehannine Austin 05:15

So, the project is really based on the idea of, it’s called pharmacogenomics or pharmacogenetics. So, pharmacogenetics, slash pharmacogenomics, is really all about the idea that we know that different people will respond differently to the same medication.

So, let’s say, Kaylee, you and I are both prescribed an antidepressant, let’s say, and for me, that medication actually gets rid of my depression and anxiety symptoms, and I don’t have any really bad side effects. Whereas you get prescribed exactly the same medicine, but not only does it not help any symptoms of depression or anxiety that you might be experiencing, but maybe it also gives you some really unpleasant side effects. Maybe you get dry mouth, maybe you get, like, really bad nausea or something like that. So how can that be that you and I are reacting completely differently to the same drug that’s being prescribed to both of us in the same dose?

Well, the idea is that we think that those differences in how we respond is based, at least in part, on differences in our genetic makeup. So, we all have hundreds and hundreds of different genetic changes in our DNA. Some of them will influence how we metabolize medications, including things like antidepressants. And so, really, pharmacogenetics is all about trying to test for those genetic differences that we have, so as we can try to find a medication that works really well for you without causing nasty side effects, essentially. That’s the goal.

Dr. Kaylee Byers 06:59

So how did we get here? Like, how did this project come into being? And how did we get to the point that we’re thinking that it’s linked to our genetics, and we’re looking at that, those small differences between us?

Dr. Jehannine Austin 07:09

In psychiatry, the process of finding a medication that works for someone can be particularly tricky. It’s really common for people to have to go through several different cycles of trying different medications before people find one that works. And obviously, if the reason that you’re being prescribed medication in the first place is because you’re super depressed, that’s not really great. That’s not something that you want to be struggling through if you’re already in a place of, you know, extreme distress. Just to be really blunt. We really need better and more effective ways to help people that live with psychiatric illnesses and to make sure that they don’t have to suffer through multiple rounds of different medication trials to get one that works.

Dr. Kaylee Byers 07:55

It seems to me that what it’s doing is the aim is to cut down on some of this guesswork or the trial and error, as you say, which is so important when you’re trying to find a medication for something like a mental illness around depression or anxiety.

Dr. Jehannine Austin 08:09

That’s exactly right. Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Kaylee Byers 08:11

So as a genetic counsellor, what does this process look like for you? Can you walk us through that a little bit?

Dr. Jehannine Austin 08:17

Sure. So yeah, no, I think it’s a really good moment to sort of take a sidestep, I think, and talk about what genetic counselling is because it can interface with the idea of pharmacogenetic testing. But it doesn’t necessarily have to, and it doesn’t always… so clear.

Anyway, so let’s just take a sidebar. So the way to think of it is it sort of a bit like, you know, how you have physiotherapists and speech-language pathologists, and so on. And the goal really, of genetic counselling training, is to help, how to take really complex concepts and to take those really complex concepts and turn it into something that’s actually understandable and meaningful. I think one of the questions people have is about, well, how does genetic testing actually happen? But the basic piece of it is that you need to have some sort of biological sample from a person to test. So lots of the genetic testing companies will actually ask you to spit in a tube, generate a bunch of saliva, spit in a tube and send the tube off to them. And actually, that saliva will contain cells from your body from which DNA can be extracted, right? So that’s a really nice way of doing it.

So I specialize in genetic counselling as it applies to psychiatric disorders. So psychiatric disorders would include things like the conditions we’ve already been talking about today. Depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, OCD, eating disorders, those kinds of things. And when somebody has been diagnosed with a condition like that, we tend to find a lot of things like guilt and blame and shame and fear and stigma. So those emotional responses that people have to receiving that kind of diagnosis can be really powerful and not always helpful, you know, they’re not always good feelings. And so, really, genetic counselling in my space about psychiatric disorders is really helping people to understand it’s not your fault. It’s absolutely not your fault. I don’t care what kind of psychiatric disorder you have. And I don’t care what you think you’ve done to cause it. Well, I do actually care a lot about what you think. But the point is that it is not your fault.

Dr. Kaylee Byers 10:40

Discussing mental health can be difficult, not just personally but scientifically as well. Our minds are like complex puzzles. And there’s really no cover image to go off of, which, frankly, is my go-to for puzzle solving. It just doesn’t always fit into easy-to-read tables and charts. To explore this on a more personal level, Lisa Ridgeway, a person with lived experience of depression, shared her story with us.

Lisa Ridgeway 11:11

So I think, standing on the porch with the dog ready to go, I step off onto the pavement and take a walk beside a long forest. And it’s a forest a very old trees. They’re very old, Garry oak trees, and a Garry oak tree is just a strong, silent oak tree in my backyard. And there’s a duck pond. So I walked by the duck pond with my labrador retriever, who doesn’t seem to take any notice of the ducks. And sometimes, those trees remind me of the people that I’ve lost and being able to ground myself with the dog and, and that helps me come to terms with my lived experience.

Six years ago, and my only sibling died of lymphoma after a couple of bone marrow transplants. Five and six years have gone by, and we’re taking the future one step at a time. One thing depression can do is make it so you aren’t open to any new experiences or to doing anything beyond your bed. It’s like being in a swamp right being in the bottom of the dark hole. And depression is different for everyone. But for some of us, it’s just a big black dog, which is funny because I have a big black dog already that I walked by the duck pond. And it [depression] can feel anything from manageable in the moment to totally unmanageable, leading to some pretty dark thoughts.

Dr. Kaylee Byers 12:42

Lisa was an early proponent of exploring genome sequencing to better help her health.

Lisa Ridgeway 12:47

You know, one big health challenge I have is to even take antidepressants, because many medications, antidepressants, come with side effects, they come with weight gain, you know, loss of libido, constipation, suicidal thoughts. You know, sometimes, when you’ve reached the end of your tether, you’re just ready to find anything that might work. And so we all want to understand a little bit more what’s happening to us. And we all want to understand it more so that we can do something about it. And without that understanding, you’re left to the whims of fortune. So if it works, it will work very well, I think.

Dr. Kaylee Byers 13:27

So I want to bring it back to Dr. Jehannine Austin and discuss some of those difficulties people like Lisa and so many of us face.

Dr. Jehannine Austin 13:36

And so, just to be super clear, what we know about psychiatric disorders is that they arise as a result of the combined effects of our genetics and our experiences working together. It’s not one or the other. These are not just what I would call, strictly speaking, genetic conditions. They’re not caused by genes. But what you can inherit is a vulnerability to psychiatric illness. That’s a different concept. What we know from all of the big fancy research studies that have been done over the last few decades is that literally, every single one of us, every single one, will have some genetic vulnerability to mental illness, all of us.

Dr. Kaylee Byers 14:18

I really want to dive back into some of the science here for a second because you were talking about genetic vulnerability. So am I understanding it correctly that genetic vulnerability might be something like you have a gene or several genes that have been linked to, say, depression, but it doesn’t mean that they’re causing your depression or active or anything?

Dr. Jehannine Austin 14:41

Correct. So I think for a long time, we used to ask questions like, ‘is there a gene for depression?’ ‘What is the gene for depression?’ There is no gene for depression. No, there is no single “The Gene”. In genetic circles like human genetics, we talk about ‘complex disorders’, right. And that doesn’t just mean that they’re tricky, although they are. So, in genetic circles, ‘complex disorder’ has a very specific meaning. And it means that there’s all sorts of different combinations of genetic factors that work together with all sorts of different combinations of experiences to precipitate a particular condition. And so that’s exactly what we see for psychiatric disorders, that there are dozens and dozens and dozens of different genes that you can have changes in that can increase your vulnerability for developing one of these conditions. So it’s not that any of these variations causes depression, causes anxiety, causes schizophrenia. They don’t, right? All they can do is increase your vulnerability or susceptibility, if you prefer, for developing one of these conditions.

Dr. Kaylee Byers 15:56

This gets us into sort of this field of epigenetics, right? How you can have environmental things that may be turned on or off genes, or is it more nuanced than that? What is going on?

Dr. Jehannine Austin 16:05

If I’ve learned anything, as somebody with a Ph.D. in human genetics, it is that nothing is simple. And there is no single answer to everything. So basically, yes, there are, there are environments or experiences that we can have, that have different effects on different people, based on our genetics. But also, people with different genetics can be more likely to seek out different types of environments.

Dr. Kaylee Byers 16:36

Right.

Dr. Jehannine Austin 16:37

Right? So it goes in all directions. So again, I’m going to come back to how we call these ‘complex disorders’ and how it’s like if you can literally imagine every dimension of complexity, that’s what we’re talking about. Yeah. So again, if we bring it back to this idea about, you know, trying to identify, and I’m using air quotes very vigorously here, “The Gene” for any of these conditions, it’s just not a thing, not a thing.

Dr. Kaylee Byers 17:04

Oh, well darn.

You’re listening to Nice Genes! a podcast all about the fascinating world of genomics and the evolving science behind it. Brought to you by Genome British Columbia. I’m Dr. Kaylee Byers, your host, and I have a quick favour to ask you. If you’re liking the show, hit follow on Apple podcast or wherever you get your shows and stick with me as I continue this genomic journey, leave a review and tell a friend about us. It really helps the show liftoff.

As we come back to our talk with genetic counselling expert Dr. Jehannine Austin, there is one other dimension I want to explore with them. In the human genome, there is this one term I’ve seen pop up lately. It’s called the “Dark Genome”. To me, that label might sound a bit intense, like the dark matter of the universe, but at the micro-scale in your DNA. But the reality? Well, it’s far less dramatic. In our previous episode, we discussed something called the Human Genome Project. It was this large-scale initiative to sequence the entire human genome. Scientists were trying to uncover all the tiny bits of information packed in our DNA that make up our genome. In the year 2000 they announced to the world they did. But there’s a catch. About 98% of our DNA was discovered to not code for proteins, the building blocks of our body. When I was studying biology, it was described to me as quote-unquote, “junk DNA”. I understood it is that extra stuff, but it didn’t really seem to be up to anything all that interesting. Now that we have the ability to investigate this part of our genome much more clearly, the insights we’re gaining from it appear to be more than just junk.

Jehannine. Can we talk about this? Have you heard of the “Dark Genome”? What is it?

Dr. Jehannine Austin 19:20

Oh, yeah. So I think that I’m just going to be really blunt. I think that I think that the “Dark Genome” sounds to me like a bit of. Yeah, it’s a rebranding. It’s a marketing gimmick around trying to make something sound really sinister. Unknown, and I don’t know, but really, it’s exactly as you say, Kaylee, right. So it’s stuff that we used to call junk DNA. We shouldn’t call it junk because we know absolutely, categorically, that is not what it is. What we have learned since those early days, however, is that there’s all sorts of other things that can be coded in DNA beyond proteins. We also know that the stuff that we called, we used to call “junk DNA” that apparently is now being rebranded as “Dark Genome” actually contains all sorts of really important regulatory stuff.

One of the things that always helps me understand how important that must be is to think of this very simple fact. Okay, so humans have about give or take 20,000 genes, right? That may sound like a massive number. What about if I tell you that rice has double that number? It’s, it sort of it doesn’t sound quite so impressive then. But then, if you think about humans, as compared to rice, right, to the very best of our knowledge, rice has not yet sequenced its entire genome. So there’s something special about humans, right? So it can’t all be about the number of genes; the number of chunks of DNA that we have that code for proteins, it must be something else. And so what we’re growing to understand is that actually this can we call it “dark junk”?

Dr. Kaylee Byers 21:08

Yeah, please.

Dr. Jehannine Austin 21:08

Let’s call it dark junk.

Dr. Kaylee Byers 21:09

We’ve just rebranded a second time.

Dr. Jehannine Austin 21:14

Yeah, so there’s this “dark junk” is not dark junk at all. It’s, it’s what allows the complexity of expression of the basic pieces of our DNA of the protein-coding genes, and so on. It controls their timing of expression; it controls how they interact with each other and when they interact with each other. So I don’t think that… which is why I roll my eyes and laugh or feel despondent, and I’m trying to talk about dark or junk DNA because it absolutely isn’t. If it was dark or junk, we wouldn’t be having this conversation right now. Because we wouldn’t be capable of conversation because we would be sub-rice somewhere on the…

Dr. Kaylee Byers 21:58

Just blobs of protein.

Dr. Jehannine Austin 21:59

Exactly.

Dr. Kaylee Byers 22:02

But I do think this is a… it raises an interesting question for me around your work, which is that we have so much DNA, right, some of it coded in these genes that make proteins, others not. So, what are the challenges in looking at all of that and trying to figure out what might be indicative of mental health, or our health generally like? How do you wade through all of that?

Dr. Jehannine Austin 22:24

Yeah. It’s not trivial, right? And I think that, and just so that everybody knows, I mean, this was what the purpose of my Ph.D. was, you know, I was looking for genes that could make people more vulnerable to developing things like schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. This is a little history lesson isn’t it? So if we think back to the 1950s, and I know that’s a frighteningly, that was really when we started being able to look at DNA at all in humans, right. And it was very blunt instrument that we had. All we could do in the 1950s was literally looked down a microscope at chromosomes. That was it. But despite the fact that it was such a blunt instrument, that still allowed us to identify why it was that some people are born with Down syndrome because you could look down a microscope, and you could see that most people have 46 chromosomes and that they arranged in these little pairs and things. And what we could see for people who have Down syndrome is that they had an extra one, there was a there was another chromosome 21, that you can see down the microscope. And that’s what causes Down syndrome.

So, when we were looking at psychiatric disorders, obviously, one of the first things you can do is look down microscopes. Do people with schizophrenia have anything visibly different than people without? No, they don’t. They don’t. So that was a bit of a non-starter as a… So, one of the next things that became available was this thing called the ‘linkage study’. The best way I have describing the linkage study is that what you’re doing is you’re looking for chunks of DNA that are transmitted through multiple generations of a family together with an illness. And because you can imagine that there’s probably something in that chunk of DNA that’s causing the condition, right? And it was linkage studies that gave us the like, that allowed us to identify the genes that cause Huntington’s disease and cystic fibrosis. But those conditions are very different than psychiatric disorders, again, because these are conditions that are caused entirely by a particular gene. So maybe the problem is that there aren’t any genes that have that big of an effect in the same way that Huntington’s does or the cystic fibrosis gene.

So, in the 90s, there was a new technique that became available, and that was called the ‘association study’. And what you’re doing with that is looking for, at tiny individual differences in the genome and seeing whether they occur more frequently in people with a condition than without. So, people started doing association studies. And again, they were finding all sorts of like contradictory results and replication of any findings was really odd.

So, but to bring it up to sort of more up to date, so by the 2000s, where we ended up with a situation where the ‘genome-wide association study’ was possible. And those are super cool because instead of looking at individual variations in the genome one by one, so the genome-wide association study is super cool because you don’t have to sort of try and develop hypotheses about things. You can just say, let’s look at variations everywhere, across the genome and see what sticks essentially.

Dr. Kaylee Byers 25:42

So, what have you been finding by looking at this DNA and these changes in our DNA? And does your does our genome hold the keys to our mental health challenges?

Dr. Jehannine Austin 25:54

So, okay, so I want to talk about two different things very briefly. So we’ve been talking a lot over the last few minutes about the changes in our DNA that make us more vulnerable to developing psychiatric illnesses, right. And as we’ve discussed, there is no single ‘The Gene’ for any of these conditions, right? There’s dozens and dozens of these variations that can make us more vulnerable to developing them, and they all act in combination with the experiences that we have or the environments that we’re in, right? So, the other part of it, though, to bring it back to the project that I am co-leading, is that there are going to be some genetic differences that influence how we respond to a medication that were prescribed because we’ve already developed a condition.

Dr. Kaylee Byers 26:41

Are you finding any challenges with looking at the data? How accurate is it? As someone who deals with data a lot of the time and struggles with it? What are you finding? What are the challenges there?

Dr. Jehannine Austin 26:53

Yeah. So I think one of the really fascinating things about this field for me was that I came into it from a very ambivalent position, I would say, because what I’ve seen over the last ten years or so is that if you get a bunch of psychiatrists and a bunch of psychiatric geneticists together, and you show them all of the papers that have been published to date, they’re all looking at the same data, right? You’ll get about half of the room going “Oh, my goodness, we should be doing this kind of pharmacogenetic testing for everyone with depression; right now! Look at this data; we should do it now.” And the other half of the room will look at exactly the same stuff and go, “No! We’re not anywhere near having enough evidence that this is effective yet.” But these people are all experts. And they’re all looking at exactly the same pile of data. And when we started this project, I didn’t know who to side with, basically.

So, for me, like this project was as much of an effort in trying to reconcile my own, like… I want the things that I do in my practice as a genetic counsellor, I want the things that we as a society deliver as healthcare interventions, especially in the context of our publicly funded healthcare system, we have to be making these decisions based on evidence, not what feels right. Right? So, I didn’t know whether it worked or not when we started this project. But one of the things that we’ve done actually is a meta-analysis of all of the studies that have looked at applying pharmacogenetic testing for depression. We found that actually if you do pharmacogenetic testing for depression, it looks like there is a greater chance of remission. So that is that your symptoms get better, and a greater chance of recovery from depression, for example, right. But, and there’s a but, but the quality of the data that this is based on is low. And the risk of bias in the studies that have been done is high. So that means lots of the studies that have been done to date have been sponsored by companies that market the tests, for example. So anyway, it’s been an absolutely fascinating thing to get involved with that will hopefully allow us to use all sorts of different very complex parameters to figure out like, how, you know whether or not this is actually something that will be helpful and effective at the population level in BC? Yeah.

Dr. Kaylee Byers 29:39

For Lisa Ridgeway, she tried genome sequencing several years ago, before Dr. Jehannine Austin and their colleagues began their work. At that point in time, it didn’t yield much help for her.

Lisa Ridgeway 29:53

We found this genetic testing company on “Dr. Google” from an independent American company in 2017, and the cost was over 1000 Canadian dollars at the time, and the results well, I was very hopeful that it would cut the time down to find the right family of antidepressants for me to take. And when I got the results in my hands, I was very disappointed in the results. And we took the report that we got to my very good psychiatrist, and he basically looked at the report and said we had wasted our money because no one could interpret the results. Things have improved muchly by now. So I think we’d be ready to try it again at some stage. But certainly, I would like to try it and see if it works. And that’s the whole business behind the pharmacogenomics project is, you know, knowing that what medications would work for people in advance so that they wouldn’t have to go through the trial and error periods that we’ve all gone through with our different antidepressants. I think everybody’s in that ‘Eureka!’ optimistic group by now because we are getting some early good results. And that’s very heartening for us.

Dr. Kaylee Byers 31:08

Jehannine, as a genetic counsellor, when you’re working with someone, what is that experience? Like from the time they come to see you? And the time that they leave? Did they feel better? Are things… did things get more complicated?

Dr. Jehannine Austin 31:22

Yeah, right. So yeah, so we’ve actually been doing research for a number of years on what happens as a result of the genetic counselling that we provide for people. What we found is that by having these conversations with people about what causes psychiatric illness and what they can do to help protect their mental health for the future, and so on, we actually see quite dramatic increases in empowerment. And that’s this idea that you know, you feel like, I mean honestly, you just feel a bit better about yourself, essentially, and you feel more able to, to have agency to actually do something about the thing that you’re living with.

We want to help people to have better mental health, right? If you’re empowered, then you can engage in behaviour changes to protect your mental health. If you’re not empowered, you cannot, we know this; it’s already been established in the research. So we were hoping that, well, okay, if we’ve shown that people are more empowered after genetic counselling, maybe they will change, maybe they’re actually changing their behaviour. Right? So and we’ve done some research to look at that too. And they do seem to be changing their behaviour to protect their mental health. And we’ve got some research going on now to try and examine whether that actually ultimately affects people’s mental health outcomes as well. So, yeah, those are the sorts of things that we can see as outcomes of this service that we provide. It’s super cool. Yeah.

Dr. Kaylee Byers 32:56

Thank you so much for joining me today, Dr. Austin.

Dr. Jehannine Austin 32:59

Absolute pleasure. Kaylee, thank you so much for having me.

Dr. Travis Hodges 33:09

So, through my research, I started observing a behaviour which I label kind of the ‘optimistic rat’, even though that’s more of a human behavior, but what I’m looking at in these rats is, they are more positive thinking.

[From the laboratory] Oh, that middle-aged rat has just moved its head slightly. So, in the previous two rats, they looked at the adolescence, they spent about 0% of the time freezing, so they have a very positive cognitive bias when put in ambiguous situations.

As I tell a lot of people, especially a lot of students when they’re coming into the field, and like if they are starting to work with rats, at first, they’ll be like, I don’t know if I want to work with these, but then they fall in love with them and start talking to them in a room. And that’s when you know you’re ready to do your Ph.D I guess. I’m so happy to do this and so happy to talk about rats! It’s my favourite.

Dr. Kaylee Byers 34:08

As we try to provide better care for people struggling with depression or anxiety and other mental health challenges, will we get closer to finding a solution with genomics? From what Dr. Jehannine Austin described, they’re on the path to re-envisioning how we think not just about our mental health but also potential treatments now and into the future, but a few more careful considerations still need to be made.

That’s it for this episode of Nice Genes! My guest today have been Dr. Jehannine Austin, Lisa Ridgeway and Dr. Travis Hodges. If you’d like what you heard or have a comment about one of the stories, please reach out to the show on Twitter by going to @GenomeBC. We’d love to hear from you. Join us on our next episode, where we go on a hunt.

Dr. Cylita Guy 35:01

So when I think of just kind of like an elusive kind of tricksy extremely intelligent animal… when I was working in Amboseli, so southern Kenya, there was this one renowned crop raider elephant. His name is Tim.

Dr. Kaylee Byers 35:15

We’ll look into how scientists are using genomics as their secret weapon to tracking down some of the most elusive creatures in the wild.

[/et_pb_toggle][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][et_pb_row custom_padding_last_edited=”on|phone” _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” width=”100%” max_width=”100%” custom_padding=”|||50px|false|false” custom_padding_tablet=”|||50px|false|false” custom_padding_phone=”|||0px|false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” header_2_font=”Titillium Web|300||on|||||” header_2_text_color=”#FFFFFF” header_2_font_size=”43px” custom_padding=”100px|||220px|false|false” custom_padding_tablet=”30px|||0px|false|false” custom_padding_phone=”20px|||0px|false|false” custom_padding_last_edited=”on|phone” header_2_text_align_tablet=”center” header_2_text_align_phone=”center” header_2_text_align_last_edited=”on|tablet” header_2_font_size_tablet=”34px” header_2_font_size_phone=”34px” header_2_font_size_last_edited=”on|phone” global_colors_info=”{}”]

Did you like this episode? Then you should listen to…

[/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][et_pb_row column_structure=”1_3,2_3″ use_custom_gutter=”on” make_equal=”on” custom_padding_last_edited=”on|phone” _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” background_image=”https://www.genomebc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Group-12.png” background_size=”contain” background_position=”top_center” width=”85%” width_tablet=”100%” width_phone=”100%” width_last_edited=”on|phone” max_width=”85%” max_width_tablet=”100%” max_width_phone=”100%” max_width_last_edited=”on|tablet” custom_margin=”||||false|false” custom_padding=”0px|55px|0px|55px|false|true” custom_padding_tablet=”0px|55px|0px|55px|false|true” custom_padding_phone=”|25px||25px|false|true” background_last_edited=”on|desktop” background_size_phone=”contain” locked=”off” global_colors_info=”{}” custom_css_main_element_last_edited=”on|tablet” custom_css_main_element_tablet=”display:flex;flex-direction:column;” custom_css_main_element_phone=”.”][et_pb_column type=”1_3″ _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_image src=”https://www.genomebc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/S1Episode3-Cover-Art.png” title_text=”S1Episode3 – Cover Art” align=”center” _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” width=”100%” width_tablet=”300px” width_phone=”100%” width_last_edited=”on|phone” max_width=”580px” max_width_tablet=”” max_width_phone=”100%” max_width_last_edited=”on|phone” module_alignment=”center” custom_padding=”||0px||false|false” module_alignment_tablet=”center” module_alignment_phone=”left” module_alignment_last_edited=”on|tablet” global_colors_info=”{}”][/et_pb_image][/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”2_3″ _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_text disabled_on=”off|off|off” _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”Titillium Web||||||||” text_text_color=”#FFFFFF” text_font_size=”16px” text_line_height=”1.3em” width=”100%” max_width=”600px” custom_margin=”||0px||false|false” custom_padding=”25px||||false|false” custom_padding_tablet=”25px|0px|||false|false” custom_padding_phone=”25px|0px|||false|false” custom_padding_last_edited=”on|tablet” text_font_size_tablet=”24px” text_font_size_last_edited=”off|desktop” text_orientation_tablet=”” text_orientation_phone=”center” text_orientation_last_edited=”on|phone” module_alignment_tablet=”left” module_alignment_phone=”center” module_alignment_last_edited=”on|tablet” global_colors_info=”{}”]

EPISODE 3

[/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” header_font=”Titillium Web|900|||||||” header_text_color=”#FFFFFF” header_font_size=”48px” header_3_font=”Titillium Web|900|||||||” header_3_text_color=”#FFFFFF” header_3_font_size=”32px” header_3_letter_spacing=”1px” max_width=”100%” custom_margin=”10px||0px||false|false” header_text_align_tablet=”” header_text_align_phone=”center” header_text_align_last_edited=”on|phone” header_font_size_tablet=”34px” header_font_size_phone=”34px” header_font_size_last_edited=”on|tablet” header_3_font_size_tablet=”28px” header_3_font_size_phone=”28px” header_3_font_size_last_edited=”on|tablet” header_text_shadow_style=”preset1″ header_text_shadow_vertical_length=”0.13em” header_text_shadow_blur_strength=”0.16em” header_text_shadow_color=”rgba(0,0,0,0.62)” global_colors_info=”{}”]

THE INVISIBLE FOOTPRINT: HOW THE HUNT FOR WILD SPECIES LEADS TO eDNA

[/et_pb_text][et_pb_text disabled_on=”off|off|off” _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”Titillium Web||||||||” text_text_color=”#FFFFFF” text_font_size=”20px” text_line_height=”1.3em” max_width=”100%” custom_margin=”||20px||false|false” custom_padding=”5px|11%|||false|false” custom_padding_tablet=”5px|0px|||false|false” custom_padding_phone=”5px|0px|30px||false|false” custom_padding_last_edited=”on|tablet” text_font_size_tablet=”24px” text_font_size_last_edited=”off|desktop” text_orientation_tablet=”” text_orientation_phone=”center” text_orientation_last_edited=”on|phone” global_colors_info=”{}”]

CO-HOST: CYLITA GUY, PHD, ECOLOGIST, DATA SCIENTIST, SCIENCE COMMUNICATOR

GUEST: GABI FLEURY, CONSERVATIONIST, TECHNOLOGIST, RESEARCHER

[/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”Roboto|500|||||||” text_text_color=”#FFFFFF” max_width=”100%” module_alignment=”left” custom_margin=”0px||||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”]

Dr. Kaylee Byers and her wing-woman Dr. Cylita Guy, call-in wildlife conservationist Gabi Fleury to assist in answering, ‘How do you find that which doesn’t want to be found? And should you?’ Globally speaking, does our need to turn over every rock to find vulnerable species really intersect with conservation? Rats, Bats, and cheetahs weasel their way into this exciting conversation on how the study of genomics may be the “hopping off point” into a more sustainable future.

Also joining us is world famous DNA scientist, professor and globe-trotting adventurer Eske Willerslev, sharing the secret weapon he pioneered to find some of the world’s most elusive creatures.

[/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https://www.genomebc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Group-6.png” title_text=”Group 6″ url=”@ET-DC@eyJkeW5hbWljIjp0cnVlLCJjb250ZW50IjoicG9zdF9saW5rX3VybF9wb3N0Iiwic2V0dGluZ3MiOnsicG9zdF9pZCI6IjE5ODE4In19@” _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _dynamic_attributes=”url” _module_preset=”default” custom_margin=”-30px||||false|false” custom_padding=”0px||||false|false” locked=”off” global_colors_info=”{}”][/et_pb_image][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][/et_pb_section][et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ custom_padding_last_edited=”on|tablet” _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” background_image=”https://www.genomebc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/denim_bg-1.png” parallax=”on” parallax_method=”off” width=”100%” max_width=”100%” custom_margin=”||-26px|||” custom_padding=”|0px|25px|0px|false|false” custom_padding_tablet=”||25px|25px|false|false” custom_padding_phone=”0px||25px|25px|false|false” locked=”off” global_colors_info=”{}” global_module=”19967″ theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_row column_structure=”1_3,2_3″ use_custom_gutter=”on” gutter_width=”1″ _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” width=”85%” max_width=”85%” module_alignment=”center” global_colors_info=”{}” custom_css_main_element_last_edited=”on|phone” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_column type=”1_3″ _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_image src=”https://www.genomebc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Group-17.png” title_text=”Group 17″ align_tablet=”center” align_phone=”center” align_last_edited=”on|tablet” disabled_on=”off|off|on” _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” width=”400px” width_tablet=”400px” width_phone=”100%” width_last_edited=”on|phone” max_width=”400px” max_width_tablet=”400px” max_width_phone=”100%” max_width_last_edited=”on|phone” custom_margin=”||30px||false|false” custom_padding_tablet=”” custom_padding_phone=”30px||||false|false” custom_padding_last_edited=”on|phone” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][/et_pb_image][et_pb_image src=”https://www.genomebc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/genomebc_logo-1.png” title_text=”genomebc_logo 1″ _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” width=”250px” max_width=”250px” custom_margin=”70px||||false|false” custom_margin_tablet=”0px||||false|false” custom_margin_phone=”0px||||false|false” custom_margin_last_edited=”on|tablet” module_alignment_tablet=”center” module_alignment_phone=”center” module_alignment_last_edited=”on|tablet” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”Roboto||||||||” text_text_color=”#FFFFFF” text_font_size=”17px” text_line_height=”1.3em” custom_margin=”25px||||false|false” text_orientation_tablet=”center” text_orientation_phone=”center” text_orientation_last_edited=”on|tablet” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”]

400–575 West 8th Avenue
Vancouver, BC V5Z 0C4 Canada

[/et_pb_text][et_pb_social_media_follow icon_color=”#1A0052″ _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” background_color=”RGBA(255,255,255,0)” custom_margin=”25px||||false|false” text_orientation_tablet=”center” text_orientation_phone=”center” text_orientation_last_edited=”on|tablet” border_radii=”on|30px|30px|30px|30px” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_social_media_follow_network social_network=”twitter” url=”https://twitter.com/GenomeBC” _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” background_color=”#FFFFFF” background_enable_color=”on” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” follow_button=”off” url_new_window=”on”]twitter[/et_pb_social_media_follow_network][et_pb_social_media_follow_network social_network=”facebook” url=”https://www.facebook.com/Genomebc” _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” background_color=”#FFFFFF” background_enable_color=”on” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” follow_button=”off” url_new_window=”on”]facebook[/et_pb_social_media_follow_network][et_pb_social_media_follow_network social_network=”linkedin” url=”https://www.linkedin.com/company/genome-british-columbia” _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” background_color=”#FFFFFF” background_enable_color=”on” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” follow_button=”off” url_new_window=”on”]linkedin[/et_pb_social_media_follow_network][et_pb_social_media_follow_network social_network=”youtube” url=”https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8NBVtSJ9AXgHOixxNYD9bw” _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” background_color=”#FFFFFF” background_enable_color=”on” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” follow_button=”off” url_new_window=”on”]youtube[/et_pb_social_media_follow_network][et_pb_social_media_follow_network social_network=”instagram” url=”https://www.instagram.com/genomebc/” _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” background_color=”#FFFFFF” background_enable_color=”on” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” follow_button=”off” url_new_window=”on”]instagram[/et_pb_social_media_follow_network][/et_pb_social_media_follow][/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”2_3″ disabled_on=”on|on|off” _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_image src=”https://www.genomebc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Group-17.png” title_text=”Group 17″ disabled_on=”on|on|off” _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” width=”400px” width_tablet=”400px” width_phone=”100%” width_last_edited=”on|phone” max_width=”400px” max_width_tablet=”400px” max_width_phone=”100%” max_width_last_edited=”on|phone” custom_padding_tablet=”” custom_padding_phone=”30px||||false|false” custom_padding_last_edited=”on|phone” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][/et_pb_image][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][et_pb_row column_structure=”1_3,2_3″ use_custom_gutter=”on” gutter_width=”1″ disabled_on=”on|off|off” _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” width=”85%” max_width=”85%” module_alignment=”center” custom_margin=”-90px||||false|false” custom_margin_tablet=”0px||||false|false” custom_margin_phone=”-50px||||false|false” custom_margin_last_edited=”on|tablet” custom_padding=”0px||||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_column type=”1_3″ _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”2_3″ _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” custom_padding=”|190px|||false|false” custom_padding_tablet=”|0px|||false|false” custom_padding_phone=”|0px|||false|false” custom_padding_last_edited=”on|tablet” custom_css_main_element=”display:flex;||” global_colors_info=”{}” custom_css_main_element_last_edited=”on|tablet” custom_css_main_element_tablet=”display:flex;justify-content:center;” custom_css_main_element_phone=”display:flex;justify-content:center;” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_image src=”https://www.genomebc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Apple-Podcasts-2.png” title_text=”Apple Podcasts 2″ url=”https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/nice-genes/id1622851335″ url_new_window=”on” _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” width=”400px” max_width=”400px” custom_margin_tablet=”|10px|||false|false” custom_margin_phone=”|10px|||false|false” custom_margin_last_edited=”on|tablet” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][/et_pb_image][et_pb_image src=”https://www.genomebc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Google-Podcasts-2.png” title_text=”Google Podcasts 2″ url=”https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9vbW55LmZtL3Nob3dzL25pY2UtZ2VuZXMvcGxheWxpc3RzL3BvZGNhc3QucnNz” url_new_window=”on” _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” width=”400px” max_width=”400px” custom_padding_tablet=”|10px|||false|false” custom_padding_phone=”|10px|||false|false” custom_padding_last_edited=”on|tablet” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][/et_pb_image][et_pb_image src=”https://www.genomebc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Spotify-2.png” title_text=”Spotify 2″ url=”https://open.spotify.com/show/1QMp75HRv58202xP8HrOwN?si=0d5b10d694084983&nd=1″ url_new_window=”on” align_tablet=”center” align_phone=”center” align_last_edited=”on|tablet” _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” width=”400px” max_width=”400px” custom_margin_tablet=”||||false|false” custom_margin_phone=”||||false|false” custom_margin_last_edited=”on|tablet” custom_padding=”|0px|||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][/et_pb_image][et_pb_image src=”https://www.genomebc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Amazon-Music-2.png” title_text=”Amazon Music 2″ url=”https://music.amazon.ca/podcasts/a347275a-ce02-4d68-ba97-b9e75d86f9ff/nice-genes” url_new_window=”on” _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” width=”400px” max_width=”400px” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][/et_pb_image][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][et_pb_row custom_padding_last_edited=”on|phone” disabled_on=”off|on|on” _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” custom_margin=”||||false|false” custom_padding_tablet=”” custom_padding_phone=”0px||0px||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” custom_padding=”|25px|||false|false” custom_css_main_element=”display:flex;” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_image src=”https://www.genomebc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Apple-Podcasts-2.png” title_text=”Apple Podcasts 2″ url=”https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/nice-genes/id1622851335″ url_new_window=”on” _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” width=”400px” max_width=”400px” custom_margin_tablet=”|10px|||false|false” custom_margin_phone=”|10px|||false|false” custom_margin_last_edited=”on|tablet” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][/et_pb_image][et_pb_image src=”https://www.genomebc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Google-Podcasts-2.png” title_text=”Google Podcasts 2″ url=”https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9vbW55LmZtL3Nob3dzL25pY2UtZ2VuZXMvcGxheWxpc3RzL3BvZGNhc3QucnNz” url_new_window=”on” _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” width=”400px” max_width=”400px” custom_padding_tablet=”|10px|||false|false” custom_padding_phone=”|10px|||false|false” custom_padding_last_edited=”on|tablet” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][/et_pb_image][et_pb_image src=”https://www.genomebc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Spotify-2.png” title_text=”Spotify 2″ url=”https://open.spotify.com/show/1QMp75HRv58202xP8HrOwN?si=0d5b10d694084983&nd=1″ url_new_window=”on” _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” width=”400px” max_width=”400px” custom_margin_tablet=”||||false|false” custom_margin_phone=”||||false|false” custom_margin_last_edited=”on|tablet” custom_padding=”|10px|||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][/et_pb_image][et_pb_image src=”https://www.genomebc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Amazon-Music-2.png” title_text=”Amazon Music 2″ url=”https://music.amazon.ca/podcasts/a347275a-ce02-4d68-ba97-b9e75d86f9ff/nice-genes” url_new_window=”on” _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” width=”400px” max_width=”400px” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][/et_pb_image][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][et_pb_row column_structure=”3_5,2_5″ use_custom_gutter=”on” custom_padding_last_edited=”on|tablet” _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” width=”100%” max_width=”100%” custom_margin=”-17px||||false|false” custom_padding=”0px||0px|8%|false|false” custom_padding_tablet=”0px||0px|0%|false|false” custom_padding_phone=”0px||0px|0%|false|false” module_alignment_tablet=”center” module_alignment_phone=”center” module_alignment_last_edited=”on|tablet” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_column type=”3_5″ _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”Roboto||||||||” text_text_color=”#FFFFFF” text_font_size=”17px” text_line_height=”1.3em” module_alignment=”center” custom_margin=”25px||||false|false” custom_padding=”||||false|false” custom_padding_tablet=”|30px||0px|false|false” custom_padding_phone=”|10%|||false|false” custom_padding_last_edited=”on|tablet” text_orientation_tablet=”center” text_orientation_phone=”center” text_orientation_last_edited=”on|tablet” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”]

[/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”2_5″ _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”Roboto||||||||” text_text_color=”#FFFFFF” text_font_size=”17px” text_line_height=”1.3em” module_alignment=”center” custom_margin=”25px||||false|false” custom_padding=”||||false|false” custom_padding_tablet=”|30px||0px|false|false” custom_padding_phone=”|10%|||false|false” custom_padding_last_edited=”on|tablet” text_orientation_tablet=”center” text_orientation_phone=”center” text_orientation_last_edited=”on|tablet” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”]

Host: Kaylee Byers

Creative Director: Jen Moss
Strategy: Roger Nairn
Producer: Sean Holden
Content Creator: Phoebe Melvin
Audio Engineer: Patrick Emile
Cover Art Designer: Amanda Di Genova

[/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][/et_pb_section]

Vancouver, BC – Genome British Columbia (Genome BC) today announced the appointment of Dr. Federica Di Palma as Chief Scientific Officer (CSO) & Vice President, Sectors. She brings over 20 years of international experience in science, technology and innovation with an emphasis on understanding complex biological systems. Dr. Di Palma’s deep understanding of genomics and strategic expertise will make her an essential member of the Genome BC leadership team and a key asset in fulfilling the goals outlined in the 2020-2023 Strategic Plan.

Dr. Di Palma holds a PhD in Immunogenetics from the University of Reading and brings strong international connections, with experience in the US through institutions such as NIH, Harvard and MIT. Most recently she was Director of Science at the Earlham Institute and she remains Professorial Fellow in Biodiversity in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of East Anglia.

“Dr. Di Palma brings extensive experience in interdisciplinary matrix type environments in combination with strong interpersonal and management skills and a natural strategic ability. She has a track record of collaboration and mentorship and understands the importance of building strong relationships across government, academia and industry”, says Dr. Pascal Spothelfer, CEO and President, Genome BC. “We look forward to leveraging her experience within our own life sciences community to further catalyze genomic applications that bring tangible benefits to British Columbians and help with BC’s long term economic recovery.”

Dr. Di Palma’s previous experience also includes her roles as the Assistant Director, Vertebrate Genome Biology at the Broad Institute of Harvard, a Senior Research Scientist and Service Centre Manager at the Hubbard Centre for Genome Studies at the University of New Hampshire, Durham and a Fogarty Fellow, National Institutes of Health.

“I am thrilled to be joining Genome BC. I look forward to the opportunity to collaborate and share my experience in science innovation and technology with BC’s impressive scientific and industry communities. I believe that multidisciplinary research, partnerships and multisectoral perspectives are key to solving today’s health and environmental challenges and effectively informing policy development and implementation,” says Di Palma. “Omic sciences will only increase in potential and power with the enhancement of bioinformatics, artificial intelligence and increased uptake capacity and I can’t wait to work with the team at Genome BC to make this happen.”

Throughout her career, Dr. Di Palma has also developed an extensive list of accomplishments in scientific outreach, publications, editorial development, public and policy engagement, and international development activities. She sits as an elected member to the “Mission de Sabios” to establish the future in Science, Innovation and Technology for Colombia’s Vice-President and holds an honorary Professorship position at the Norwich Medical School, University of East Anglia.

Dr. Di Palma will begin her position with Genome BC on September 1, 2020.

-30-

About Genome British Columbia:
Genome BC is a not-for-profit organization supporting world-class genomics research and innovation to grow a globally competitive life sciences sector and deliver sustainable benefits for British Columbia, Canada and beyond. Over the past 20 years, Genome BC has generated over $1.1B of investment in more than 425 genomics research and innovation projects, including nearly 1,000 collaborations with partners across BC and in 42 countries. Genome BC initiatives are improving the lives of people throughout BC by advancing health care, forestry, fisheries and aquaculture, agrifoods and agriculture, mining and energy, and environmental stewardship. In addition to scientific programming, Genome BC works to integrate genomics into society by supporting responsible research and innovation, and is committed to fostering an understanding and appreciation of the life sciences among educators, students and the public. genomebc.ca

Contact:
Sally Greenwood
Genome BC
VP Communications & Societal Engagement

When the Vancouver Aquarium lost their two beloved belugas to a mysterious illness, they turned to genomics to help. They were able to completely sequence a beluga genome for the first time. The legacy of Aurora and Qila has helped scientists, and belugas, all over the world.

The way we ate 1,000 years ago is vastly different from the way we eat now. And two scientists who specialize in how food is produced believe the way we’ll eat in 1,000 years will be much different than today. Did you know almost all the cheese we eat today is thanks to genomics? And what we will eat in the future could include things like cellular ice cream and mastodon gummy bears.

Vancouver, Canada — Genome BC is pleased to announce a further investment of $500,000 in addition to $1 million last year to LightIntegra Technology (LIT). LIT has developed the first analyzer to provide a routine test for platelet activation status.

A Vancouver based medical device company, LIT is focused on improving the quality of and providing the necessary level of blood platelets in a patient following a platelet transfusion (refractoriness) and reducing costs for healthcare institutions and blood cancer patients. Platelets are a key component in blood and are necessary for clotting and immune defense. LIT’s novel technology, ThromboLUX, can be used to rapidly determine platelet quality, thus avoiding ineffective transfusions and potentially reducing the need for further transfusions. The expected results are improved patient outcomes, safety, and reduced healthcare costs.

“We are pleased to provide LIT with additional growth capital through our Industry Innovation (I²) Fund,” says Dr. Tony Brooks, Chief Financial Officer and Vice President, Entrepreneurship & Commercialization at Genome BC. “This investment is specifically designated to amplify the distribution of the technology and fund a pilot program in clinical settings.”

The premise of the ThromboLUX technology is that activated platelets are optimal for clotting and are therefore most effective for trauma or surgery patients while non-activated platelets are best for cancer patients. The current standard of care assumes all platelet bags are the same; however, up to 50% of a platelet bag inventory may be activated. When activated platelets are given to immune-compromised patients, such as cancer patients, it potentially leads to failed transfusions with multiple failed transfusions leading to platelet refractoriness, which can ultimately result in death. ThromboLUX will change these results.

ThromboLUX is a non-invasive, five-minute, easy-to-use optical test that doesn’t require dilution or reagents. It relies on the principle of dynamic light scattering to determine the size and distribution of all particles in a platelet sample.

“As elective surgeries are returning, platelet shortages are expected. LIT is doing its part to preserve this precious resource and save lives by providing the right platelet to the right patient,” said Irfhan Rajani, Acting President and CEO at LightIntegra Technologies. “Genome BC’s additional investment will help us to advance commercial activities.”

Genome BC’s I² Fund provides commercialization support for companies developing innovative life science technologies that address biological challenges in key economic sectors in BC: Agriculture, Energy and Mining, Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture, Forestry, and Human Health. The I² Fund also supports digital health and other technologies that further move precision medicine into clinical practice. I² funding is repayable and is allocated to promising technologies (products, processes or services) at the early stages of commercial development. The Fund aims to provide risk capital that is concurrently matched by other public or private funding sources.

About LightIntegra Technology, Inc.:
LightIntegra Technology is a privately funded medical diagnostics company launched from the Canadian Blood Services R&D labs through the efforts of research scientist Dr. Elisabeth Maurer. LightIntegra’s efforts to minimize platelet refractoriness have resulted in the introduction of ThromboLUX, a rapid in-vitro test that assesses platelet activation status. As a routine test for platelet concentrates, ThromboLUX identifies which platelet units may be best suited for prophylaxis and which units may be best suited for therapeutic use.

About Genome British Columbia:
Genome British Columbia leads genomics innovation on Canada’s West Coast and facilitates the integration of genomics into society. A recognized catalyst for government and industry, Genome BC invests in research, entrepreneurship and commercialization in life sciences to address challenges in key sectors such as health, forestry, fisheries and aquaculture, agrifood, energy, mining and environment. Genome BC partners with many national and international public and private funding organizations to drive BC’s bioeconomy. www.genomebc.ca

Contact:
Jennifer Boon
Communications Manager, Sectors
Genome BC
Mobile: 778-327-8374
Email: jboon@genomebc.ca
@genomebc #genomebc

Humans aren’t the only ones fighting a pandemic right now. Honey bees are also at risk, under attack by a parasite that is killing millions of colonies around the world. Much like people, honey bees are employing techniques like hygiene and social distancing to survive. But parasites are just one of several threats to the world’s honey bees. And scientists are using genomics to search for tools to save them.

Vancouver, Canada — Genome BC is pleased to announce $1 million in funding to Sonic Incytes Medical Corp., completing the company’s seed financing round of over CDN$3.5 million supported by institutional investors, angel funds and private individuals. Vancouver based Sonic Incytes is developing a breakthrough, point of care ultrasound solution for assessing and managing chronic liver disease – an emerging global health crisis, affecting one in four persons worldwide.

In addition to Genome BC’s investment, Sonic Incytes also raised over $2.5M in seed financing from institutional investors Small World Group, Think Top Investments and Sunhope Venture Capital, as well as angel investors World Changing Ventures, TMFOX, UBC Seed Fund and E-Fund.

Fatty liver disease is the fastest growing and largest segment of chronic liver disease, driven largely by the increasing prevalence of diabetes and obesity. The continued growth in patients and emergence of potential new therapies creates an urgent need for a cost-effective, quick, and accurate diagnostic solution to assess and manage the progression and treatment of this disease.

“We are pleased to provide Sonic Incytes with $1 million in capital through our Industry Innovation (I²) Fund,” says Dr. Tony Brooks, Chief Financial Officer and Vice President, Entrepreneurship & Commercialization at Genome BC. “Our investment, alongside funding from other investors, will help Sonic Incytes commercialize this innovative solution and make a significant difference in the management of liver disease and improve overall health and wellness.”

“This financing will go a long way in helping us redefine the standard of care in quantifying fatty liver disease. Physicians will soon be able to accurately diagnose liver disease with a solution comparable to MRI,” said George Aliphtiras, CEO, Sonic Incytes Medical Corp. “Access to a point of care diagnostic solution that replaces biopsy and MRI is an urgent unmet need for effective patient management, and we are ideally positioned to address this emerging health crisis.”

Currently definitive diagnostic tools for fatty liver disease are limited to biopsy and MRI, which are expensive, invasive and time-consuming. Sonic Incyte’s portable, handheld solution uses technology similar to MRI elastography, quantifying liver disease using 3D tissue sampling. It is a point of care solution that provides consistently accurate results, and a clear picture of liver health in real time, so that physicians can be confident in their diagnosis, treatment and care. In addition, the entire procedure takes about five minutes in a doctor’s office, contributing to a quick, safe and comfortable patient experience.

-30-

About the Industry Innovation Fund:
Genome BC has invested in Sonic Incytes through its Industry Innovation (I²) program. The I² Fund provides commercialization support for companies developing innovative life science technologies that address biological challenges in key economic sectors in BC: Agriculture, Energy and Mining, Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture, Forestry, and Human Health. The I² Fund also supports digital health and other technologies that further move precision medicine into clinical practice. I² funding is repayable and is allocated to promising technologies (products, processes or services) at the early stages of commercial development. The Fund aims to provide risk capital that is concurrently matched by other public or private funding sources.

About Sonic Incytes Medical Corp.:
Recognizing the rise of fatty liver disease, Sonic Incytes has a mission to reduce the disease by enabling routine assessment and management of liver health. It plans to enter the market with its breakthrough, point of care ultrasound solution at the end of 2020. In April 2020, Sonic Incytes was recognized as a Ready to Rocket Life Science company for its innovative technology and potential for growth. Founded in 2017, Sonic Incytes is a medical device company headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. www.sonicincytes.com

Contact:
Jennifer Boon
Communications Manager, Sectors

We are pleased to welcome you to our inaugural podcast! We will be producing a series covering topics from COVID-19 to the collapsing honey bee colonies. Our first episode is How Genomics Helped Crack the Code of COVID-19.

In the early stages of a pandemic, the world needs answers fast. Genomics, the mapping of genes, is helping to find those answers with unprecedented speed. Two scientists at the BC Centre for Disease Control are at the forefront of this global race. They are using genomics to look for clues that would normally take months, if not years to find. They are using genomics to track transmissions to stop the pandemic and crack the code of COVID-19. Watch and/or listen below:

Search for “The Code of Life GenomeBC”

Project: Characterizing Antibody Response to Emerging COVID-19 Virus

To date, COVID-19 infection has been diagnosed solely through laboratory tests that detect viral RNA. These diagnostic tests reveal whether someone is currently infected but do not reveal critical information about the development of immunity, which requires analysis of the antibodies generated by the immune system after infection. More information is urgently needed about the development, duration, and strength of the antibody responses that lead to immunity following infection with SARS-CoV-2.

This project will evaluate four new commercial antibody detection platforms to identify suitable genomic tests, known as assays, to reliably detect different types of antibodies that can provide clues about immune response. These assays will be used to profile antibody production against SARS-CoV-2 in both newly infected and previously infected Health Care Workers (HCW) over three months.

Findings will reveal how quickly HCW develop an immune response to SARS-CoV-2 and how robust this protection is against subsequent exposures they will likely encounter after recovery. This antibody data can be used to immediately inform guidelines for HCW at high risk of SARS-CoV-2 exposure, including return to work policies and front-line deployment strategies.

Learn more about this, and other successful Rapid Response Funding projects here: http://ow.ly/rTiX50ze2nP

Vancouver, Canada —Depression is the leading cause of disability worldwide. In Canada, depression and anxiety cost approximately $50 billion annually in lost productivity. Current figures indicate that at any given time, one in five people are struggling with mental illness and, two thirds of sufferers are left untreated due to neglect, stigma, cost, and lack of access to treatment. Wait times for access to treatment can be up to 18 months. The Canadian Mental Health Association stated that Canada currently only spends about 7.2% of its total health-care budget on mental health, which is among the lowest of all G7 countries.

In an effort to make mental health support more accessible, Genome BC has invested in BC based Starling Minds. The company has developed a workplace Mental Health Platform for organizations as an on-demand, 100% digital Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) solution so that there are minimal barriers for employees to access evidence-based support. With a digital approach to CBT, Starling can provide millions of people with effective and affordable mental health care.

Peter Oxley, Starling Minds’ CEO shares, “Mental illness has become a pervasive problem where an estimated 500,000 Canadians are unable to work on any given day.” He adds, “There could not be a better time for us to harness innovative digital technologies to remove these barriers and make evidence-based mental health care accessible to everyone.”

Starling’s Mental Fitness (prevention) and Return-to-Health (return-to-work) solutions provide workers with a comprehensive set of CBT based mental health tools that achieve the following outcome claims based on anonymous self-reported data:

An improvement in mental health scores (on average, 77% report a reduction in stress, anxiety and depression)
An increase in worker productivity (on average, 51 hours/year of reduced absenteeism per employee)
A reduction in disability claim costs (90% cheaper than traditional face-to-face therapy)

Starling Minds has recently surpassed growth targets with a 200% increase in their member base. This is attributed to rapid client expansion in education, healthcare, and insurance verticals.

“Genome BC uses our Industry Innovation Fund to invest in relevant and timely initiatives,” says Dr. Tony Brooks, Chief Financial Officer and Vice President, Entrepreneurship & Commercialization. “We are putting dollars into Starling to support BC based digital health content developers and create more jobs for highly-skilled people with AI and machine learning skills.”

Genome BC has invested in Starling through its Industry Innovation (I²) program. The I² Fund provides commercialization support for companies developing innovative life science technologies that address biological challenges in key economic sectors in BC: Agriculture, Energy and Mining, Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture, Forestry, and Human Health. The I² Fund also supports digital health and other technologies that further move precision medicine into clinical practice. I² funding is repayable and is allocated to promising technologies (products, processes or services) at the early stages of commercial development. The Fund aims to provide risk capital that is concurrently matched by other public or private funding sources.

-30-

About Genome British Columbia: Genome British Columbia leads genomics innovation on Canada’s West Coast and facilitates the integration of genomics into society. A recognized catalyst for government and industry, Genome BC invests in research, entrepreneurship and commercialization in life sciences to address challenges in key sectors such as health, forestry, fisheries and aquaculture, agrifood, energy, mining and environment. Genome BC partners with many national and international public and private funding organizations to drive BC’s bioeconomy. www.genomebc.ca

About Starling Minds:
Starling Minds™ is a leading digital mental health platform that empowers organizations to support mental wellbeing in the workplace. Available for over 420,000 employees across Canada, Starling offers evidence-based Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) to support and rehabilitate workers coping with stress, anxiety, and depression—any time, anywhere.

At Starling Minds, our mission is to help people feel happier and more fulfilled. By offering a digital platform with personalized customer experience, Starling aims to provide millions of people with access to effective and affordable mental healthcare.

Starling Minds. Build Resilient Minds.
www.starlingminds.com

Contact:
Sean Hougan
Director of Marketing
Starling Minds
Mobile: 604-354-5366
Email: sean@starlingminds.com

Jennifer Boon
Communications Manager, Sectors
Genome BC
Mobile: 778-327-8374
Email: jboon@genomebc.ca
@genomebc #genomebc

Vancouver, Canada —141,000 jobs in BC are directly tied to BC’s Forestry Industry. This industry generates $12.94 billion towards our province’s GDP, and pulp and paper accounts for 16% of that total. There is, however, significant opportunity to enhance the value of bioproducts from the forestry industry.

With the decline in demand of newsprint and other traditional paper products, and the need to develop environmentally sustainable solutions for challenges in other industries, there is huge potential for the forestry industry to boost uses for by-products. Two novel projects, funded by Genome BC and BC Pulp & Paper Bio-Alliance (the Alliance), will make advances to just these problems by applying innovative genomics technologies.

Led by UBC’s Dr. Sue Baldwin and valued at close to $315,000, one project will use the concept of a ‘circular economy’ to take pulp and paper mill residues, currently landfill, and use it to sequester nutrients from water at mine sites. This method would remove toxicity from the water and rehabilitate the soil. Collaboration with the mining industry is already underway to test this solution.

A second project, led by UBC’s Dr. Lindsay Eltis and valued at over $500,000, will develop biological methods that can be used to transform ‘black liquor’, a mixture of lignin and cooking chemicals which is an energy source and part of the chemical recovery system, into usable consumer goods such as adhesives, foams, and other applications. This would dramatically increase the value of black liquor and potentially enable a total increase in process output.

Both partnerships are being run in collaboration with BC’s BioProducts Institute and FP Innovations, working directly with industry partners of the Alliance. Along with UBC, FP Innovations are jointly delivering the research program to the Alliance and playing a significant role in both projects. FP Innovations also contributes $300,000 annually to the Alliance on behalf of the member companies who are part of the Alliance.

“We appreciate the investment from Genome BC to support the diversification of the BC pulp and paper industry into higher value sustainable markets.” says Bob Lindstrom, spokesperson for the BC Pulp & Paper Bio-Alliance.

“Genome BC invests in these types of projects because there is economic value attached to the science,” says Dr. Catalina Lopez-Correa, Chief Scientific Officer and Vice President, Sectors, at Genome BC. “There is a huge opportunity to enhance the value of forestry by-products to not only add to advances and innovation in BC’s economy, but also in the interest of preserving the environment.”

These projects are a direct investment through Genome BC’s GeneSolve program, designed to bring industry and academia together to find solutions for sector challenges.

-30-

Contact:
Jennifer Boon
Communications Manager, Sectors
Genome BC
Mobile: 778-327-8374
Email: jboon@genomebc.ca
@genomebc #genomebc

Cornell University researchers have spent 10 years learning how CRISPR-Cas3 works, and now their hard work is paying off. They believe the technology could one day be used to cure viral diseases by ‘shredding’ viral DNA following more research and development. In the future it is hoped CRISPR-Cas3 will be used to target specific sections of viral DNA, and delete whole stretches of the DNA, thus curing the disease.

Source: Science Alert

Mohsen Sadatsafavi

Assistant Professor, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, UBC

What social issue does your research attempt to address?

My area of expertise is ‘predictive analytics’ in healthcare. Along the cascade of the delivery of healthcare, there are two major decision-making gateways: policy makers must decide on which health technologies (treatments, medical procedures, bio-markers and diagnostic tests) should be adopted into the healthcare systems, and physicians and patients must decide on which alternative treatments to use. My area of expertise if the quantitative prediction of the outcomes of alternative choices for both policy and clinical decision making.

What drew you to this area of research?

I am a physician by training, but have had a long interest in decision theory, and ultimately decided to pursue a career in this field. During my clinical practice, I felt conflicted between my duty to provide the best care to patients, and to be a gatekeeper for judicious use of our limited healthcare resources. My quest to find a solution led me to the field of decision theory. This theory resolves this conflict by quantifying the opportunity costs of medical decisions, and helps decision makers to make choices that will increase the health of the population over the long run.

What benefits do social sciences bring to genomics research?

The majority of genomics discoveries fail to commercialize, and many of those that do are not efficiently picked up by decision makers and end-users. The Canadian Institutes of Health Research refers to these two gaps as “Death Valleys” in the research-to-practice continuum. Both death valleys require translational research that bridge the gap between the science of genomics (the G) and the social (the E3LS) aspects of implementing health technologies. The science of how to promote, implement, and evaluate genomics-based discoveries are as complex as the science behind the discovery itself. Taking the ‘E3LS’ side is critical for the ‘G’ side to be impactful in the real world.

As someone living and working in British Columbia, what is your favorite thing to do or place to go?

I love watching documentaries (mainly science and history- I admit this one has little to do with being a British Columbian), biking, ice-skating, and amateur astronomy (challenging in BC for a good part of the year!)

What’s on the top of your ‘Bucket List’ right now?

Workwise: Creating an effective knowledge translation platform such that patients, care providers, and policymakers can efficiently use prediction tools towards making more informed decisions.

Life outside work: Visiting Japan!

About Genomics and Society
Genome BC has taken a leadership role in exploring the societal aspects of genomics research. One way we do this is through supporting genomics-related social science and humanities research. This area of research doesn’t just focus on genomic impacts on society once the scientific research is complete . Through collaboration, it also aims to inform on the societal dimension of scientific research questions, research design and funding allocation. This can help genomics research produce social benefits and achieve public value. In the context of Canada’s Genomics Enterprise, this research is referred to as ‘GE³Ls – Genomics and its Environmental, Economic, Ethical, Legal and Social aspects and is distinct from the anticipated socio-economic benefits of the project itself. Learn more about Genomics and Society here.

SFU’s Venture Connection supports early stage commercialization efforts delivered through the SFU Innovates Life Sciences Stream (LSS) Program. Genome BC has invested in this program as part of our goal to address the unique entrepreneurial challenges associated with the uptake of genomics research. Click to learn more about the program.

A new collaboration between Genome BC Geneskool and Partners In Research Canada allows educators and students across British Columbia to engage directly with researchers. It’s straightforward: set up a video call with a scientist in a field related to the content of Genome BC Geneskool’s travelling suitcase exhibits.

Want to find out how researchers are combatting colony collapse in bees? Call the Foster laboratory at the University of British Columbia. Grappling with GMOs? Discuss the pros and cons with Dr. Thomas Merritt at Laurentian University. Curious about the driving force behind evolution? Connect with Dr. Claire Cupples from Simon Fraser University to discuss DNA damage and mutations.

No special technology is required to set up a video call (see box 1: What Do I Need?). Educators simply need to request a travelling suitcase from one of the five options on our website. Once confirmed, we send the contact information and biography of participating scientists to the educator so that they can coordinate a video call at a mutually convenient date and time.

What Do I Need?

Internet connection
Windows / OSX / Linux / iOS / Android / ChromeOS
Webcam, microphone & speakers
Zoom Client (free download)

Educators tell us over and over how having Geneskool volunteers in the classroom positively impacts student interest in science and scientific careers, an observation supported more broadly in the field of education research. With Partners In Research’s video calling platform, educators can now augment Geneskool travelling suitcase content with a real and relevant human interaction.

“The students particularly liked hearing about the presenter’s work and their experience in post-secondary. It was nice for them to have that interaction.” – Sabra, Oliver BC

Many of the barriers that prevent busy scientists from participating in community outreach programs are reduced or removed by the virtual nature of this program. All that is needed is 30 minutes and access to the internet. The Geneskool suitcase content primes students with background knowledge on which to develop more advanced scientific concepts and provoke discussion around any societal issues that arise from a field of scientific research. The Geneskool suitcase content gives the scientists and students a foundation on which to build their conversation.

The students are keenly interested in science… I continue to be impressed with the probing questions they ask. The fact that we hook up via the internet means that we can communicate no matter which continent I am on! – Dr. John Smol, Queen’s University ON

To get involved or to request more information about this exciting new component to the Geneskool travelling suitcase program contact: achattwood@genomebc.ca. Scientists can sign up to become subject matter experts by completing this form on the Partners In Research Canada website.

Genome BC is pleased to announce recipients of project funding through its Societal Issues Competition. The projects announced in this second round of funding will examine societal issues related to agrifood and natural resources.

Inside every living thing is DNA — the blueprint of life. As life scientists develop innovations in genomic technologies, people and industries alike are changing how they see and interact with the world. The application of genomics in our society is challenging the status quo in health care, agricultural practices and in the management of natural resources.

Genomic technologies have the potential to significantly impact our lives. As a result, social sciences and humanities research, encompassing the diverse areas of study relevant to genomics, is a necessary aspect of the genome sciences and essential to their responsible use and adoption in society.

Genome BC created the Societal Issues Competition as a way to identify and study the societal issues that emerge from genomics-based innovations. “It is important for British Columbia to continue to strengthen and build capacity in this area.” said Sally Greenwood, Genome BC’s Vice President of Communications and Societal Engagement. “Projects like these concentrate solely on the societal aspects of genomics research. This work can help us better understand societal perspectives and attitudes, which in turn can help inform policy development, regulatory guidelines, and further engagement.”

Where the inaugural round of funding (in 2017) focused on societal issues related to human health, the projects in this round focus on issues that are relevant to at least one of the Agrifood and Natural Resources sectors. (forestry, agrifood, fisheries/aquaculture, energy, mining or environment).

The specific projects funded through this round of the Societal Issues Competition include:

Understanding the perceived risks and benefits of gene editing in agricultural applications (Terre Satterfield, Milind Kandlikar, University of British Columbia)
An international comparison of the suitability of regulatory frameworks for gene-edited crops (Milind Kandlikar, Terre Satterfield, University of British Columbia)
Understanding First Nations’ values and interests related to genomics to help develop a community led educational tool (Stefania Pizzirani, Gary Bull, University of British Columbia)
Examining public beliefs about the ethics of genetically modifying livestock (Daniel Weary, University of British Columbia, Adam Shiver, University of Oxford)
Exploring policy implications and public perceptions of cellular agriculture as it pertains to dairy products. (Lenore Newman, University of the Fraser Valley)

Vancouver, BC — In 2014/2015 an outbreak of highly pathogenic Avian Influenza (AI) struck British Columbia. A total of 13 poultry farms were affected and approximately 240,000 birds died or were destroyed to control the outbreak. In addition, the disease was detected in the USA where more than 48 million birds were lost and the outbreak was estimated to have cost US$3.3 billion and resulted in shortages and price increases for certain poultry products.

Wild waterfowl are known to be the reservoir for AI, and although wild bird AI surveillance programs were already in place in Canada and the USA, it was limited to collecting and testing individual wild birds. To improve the surveillance to include environmental monitoring, in 2015 the BC Ministry of Agriculture, BC Centre for Disease Control Public Health Laboratory, and University of British Columbia joined forces to develop a new approach – a genomics-based test that identifies and characterizes AI viruses (AIV) in wetland sediments.

This work, funded in part by Genome British Columbia (Genome BC) and Genome Canada and led by Drs. Chelsea Himsworth, Jane Pritchard, William Hsiao, Natalie Prystajecky, and Agatha Jassem, successfully demonstrated that this novel approach worked, as AIV was detected in a significant proportion of sediment samples, compared to less than one percent rate of detection in the current Canadian national wild bird AI surveillance program. Additionally, the outbreak virus was found in wetlands throughout the Fraser Valley, information that could have been used to mitigate the outbreak had this technology been available.

To further evaluate this novel surveillance approach, a new project, Genomic Analysis of Wetland Sediment as a Tool for Avian Influenza Surveillance and Prevention, represents a combined investment of over $2.5 million from funders and delivery partners including Genome BC, the BC Ministry of Agriculture, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA), Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Investment Agriculture Foundation of BC, and the Sustainable Poultry Farming Group. This phase follows on from previous work and is looking at what steps are required to move the technology from a successful proof-of-concept initiative to implementation. This includes scientific validation of technology, as well as its incorporation into Provincial and National Wild Waterfowl AI Surveillance Programs. It is anticipated that this innovative approach will be adopted nationally and internationally for surveillance of AI and/or other diseases associated with wildlife.

“This investment allows Dr. Himsworth and the team to refine and validate the AI sediment surveillance with genomics technologies, methodology and field approach,” says Dr. Catalina Lopez-Correa, Chief Scientific Officer and Vice President, Sectors, at Genome BC. “Most importantly it allows for the identification of the optimal combination of AI surveillance techniques for maximum efficiency and efficacy.”

photo by Michelle Coombe

VANCOUVER, 22 May, 2018 – Today, HyperGrowth: Life celebrates the graduation of its second cohort — a group that promises to change the way we live, work and play with breakthroughs at the intersection of technology and the life sciences. Recognizing the tremendous potential that exists within the life sciences, in 2016 the BC Tech Association (BC Tech) partnered with Genome BC to create HyperGrowth: Life, a program designed to address the gap between research and commercialization in the field.

Life sciences is the study of living organisms. Although the field is critically important to humankind, few companies manage to scale their operations due to a lack of access to mentorship, capital and market know-how. Hypergrowth: Life fills that gap by providing life sciences entrepreneurs what they need to commercialize and grow their companies.

“Our investment in this program, and partnership with BC Tech, is pivotal in advancing entrepreneurship, and simultaneously supporting growth for BC-based companies,” says Dr. Tony Brooks, Chief Financial Officer and Vice President, Entrepreneurship and Commercialization. “Genome BC is supporting these young and exciting companies to help drive BC’s knowledge-based economy.”

The companies led by today’s program graduates are addressing some of the biggest and most pressing challenges facing modern society in the areas of patient care, precision health, worker safety and sustainability:

Careteam helps patients, families and health care providers act effectively as a team when it matters most;
Creatus Biosciences Inc. uses bio-based platform to eliminate traditional, chemical approaches for the production of high-value specialty chemicals;
dnaPower provides personalized testing and support using sequencing technology to create a world where everyone knows their unique genetic makeup;
LifeBooster uses the latest wearable technologies to help companies prevent the single largest and most costly injury type: musculoskeletal disorders; and
Tickit Health helps optimize communication between people and their healthcare providers.

HyperGrowth: Life is a sector-specific offshoot of BC Tech’s flagship accelerator program, HyperGrowth, widely considered to be the province’s best accelerator program. Companies from previous cohorts have gone on to grow 300% (based on revenue, team size and number of users) and double their team size by the end of program. Collectively, HyperGrowth and HyperGrowth: Life alumni have raised over $35M of follow-on funding.

During the program’s six-month acceleration period, this year’s cohort tackled some of their biggest challenges and were able to leapfrog their companies into their next stage of growth. Laser-focused on preventing musculoskeletal injuries, LifeBooster CEO, Bryan Statham, has secured two Fortune 100 clients, including a leading airline company. Careteam, in partnership with Centre for Aging and Brain Health at Baycrest Health Sciences, secured $480,000 in funding to implement their software into dementia care and senior wellness programs at Mackenzie Health and Champlain Dementia Network.

HyperGrowth: Life guides entrepreneurs to build and run solid growth engines to scale their companies through mentorship, fundraising help, and operational excellence. “BC Tech’s vision is of technology as a positive force for good in society. Our province needs more medium sized anchor tech companies and programming like this directly contributes to growing more “made in BC’ success stories” said Jill Tipping, President and CEO, the BC Tech Association. “HyperGrowth is the most impactful growth accelerator for BC-based tech companies that are looking to grow to $5-10M Annual Recurring Revenue and beyond and the spirit of collaboration between the tech and life science sectors sets the HyperGrowth Life program apart. On behalf of this cohort we want to extend a big thanks to the team at Genome BC for ensuring collaborative programming like this exists and for continuing to provide unique opportunities for tech companies in BC.”

The challenge facing a majority of life sciences companies is not innovation, but rather strategies for going to market and scaling up. The collaborative partnership between BC Tech and Genome BC combines two types of expertise that the entrepreneurs need. Life sciences entrepreneurs are invited to join the next cohort. Application will be open in Summer 2018.

About HyperGrowth: Life

HyperGrowth:Life is a six-month revenue and growth accelerator program that guides life sciences entrepreneurs to build BC’s next generation of anchor tech companies. The program is specifically designed for Health Tech, Clean Tech, Life Sciences, and Agritech entrepreneurs to build and run solid growth engines to scale their companies.

HyperGrowth Life is joint-initiative between the BC Tech Association and Genome BC to launch and support commercial-ready life sciences companies in the province.

About Genome BC

Genome British Columbia leads genomics innovation on Canada’s West Coast and facilitates the integration of genomics into society. A recognized catalyst for government and industry, Genome BC invests in research, entrepreneurship and commercialization in life sciences to address challenges in key sectors such as health, forestry, fisheries, aquaculture, agri-food, energy, mining and environment. Genome BC partners with many national and international public and private funding organizations to drive BC’s bioeconomy. In addition to research, entrepreneurship and commercialization programs, Genome BC is committed to fostering an understanding and appreciation of the life sciences among teachers, students and the general public.

About BC Tech Association

Making BC the best place to grow a tech company has been the mission of the BC Tech Association since 1993. While our members focus on growing their businesses, BC Tech has been providing opportunities for our industry members to collaborate, learn, and grow together. We are dedicated to connecting companies, developing talent, and advocating so our industry and our province thrive. To learn more visit www.wearebctech.com.

Media Contacts

BC Tech Association
Kathleen Reid
media@wearebctech.com
604-724-1242

Genome BC
Jennifer Boon
jboon@genomebc.c a
778-327-8374

Vancouver, Canada — Genome BC is pleased to announce $1 million in funding to Aspect Biosystems (Aspect), a privately held biotechnology company focused on commercializing cutting-edge 3D bioprinting technologies.

Aspect’s Lab-on-a-Printer™ 3D bioprinting platform technology enables the rapid creation of functional living tissues. The therapeutic applications are broad and profound and have attracted the attention of global pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies.

“Genome BC’s investment in Aspect Biosystems will provide funds to further their commercialization initiatives including partnership activities as well as development of their platform technology,” says Dr. Tony Brooks, Chief Financial Officer and Vice President, Entrepreneurship and Commercialization at Genome BC. “Aspect has shown significant commercial traction in a very short period of time and we are pleased to support their continued growth.”

Aspect’s 3D bioprinting platform technology is enabling the development of next-generation engineered tissue products addressing multiple applications in therapeutic discovery and regenerative medicine. These products include predictive drug testing platforms as well as transplantable tissue therapeutics. In addition to its internal programs, Aspect is establishing strategic partnerships with pharma, biotech, and healthcare companies as well as academic researchers to realize the full potential of its broadly applicable platform technology. By combining their expertise and technology with domain experts in the field, Aspect is accelerating the development of innovative tissue applications and creating meaningful impact on medical research and practice.

“Genome BC is playing an instrumental role in accelerating British Columbia’s most promising life science innovations and we are thrilled to have their support. With this additional financing, we are further increasing our capacity to meet key commercial demands and continuing our rapid growth as we work towards enabling the creation of human tissues on demand,” says Tamer Mohamed, President and CEO, Aspect Biosystems.

Genome BC has invested in Aspect through its Industry Innovation (I²) program. The I² Fund provides commercialization support for companies developing innovative life science technologies that address biological challenges in key economic sectors in BC: Agriculture, Energy and Mining, Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture, Forestry, and Human Health. The I² Fund also supports digital health and other technologies that further move precision medicine into clinical practice. I² funding is repayable and is allocated to promising technologies (products, processes or services) at the early stages of commercial development. The Fund aims to provide risk capital that is concurrently matched by other public or private funding sources.

-30-

About Aspect Biosystems:
Aspect Biosystems Ltd. is a privately held biotechnology company operating at the leading edge of 3D bioprinting and tissue engineering. The company’s proprietary Lab-on-a-Printer™ platform technology is enabling advances in understanding fundamental biology, disease research, development of novel therapeutics, and regenerative medicine. In addition to its internal tissue development programs, Aspect is focused on strategically partnering with pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, as well as academic researchers, to create physiologically and commercially relevant tissues. These tissues are used for impactful applications in therapeutic discovery and regenerative medicine. www.aspectbiosystems.com

Contact:
Tamer Mohamed Chief Executive Officer Aspect Biosystems Ltd.
Phone: +1-604-263-0502
Email: info@aspectbiosystems.com
@aspectbiosys

Jennifer Boon
Communications Manager, Sectors Genome BC
Mobile: 778-327-8374
Email: jboon@genomebc.ca
@genomebc #genomebc

BC Data Scout, a collaborative effort between the BC Ministry of Health, the BC SUPPORT Unit, and Population Data BC, officially launches today.

This online service offers health care researchers a quick and free way of discovering if there’s enough information about people with certain health characteristics to support a research study, using just a single point of access.*

Check out the video to find out more about why the launch of BC Data Scout is changing health research in BC:

Why is BC Data Scout so important? Because it makes a difference in health care. A researcher can make sure that there’s enough information available to determine if a research study is worth pursuing further, making their research applications stronger and giving them a better chance of securing future funding.

The service is important for patients because stronger research programs can lead to higher-quality research which is key to better health care – which means potential benefits for everyone.

For more information, please see this webpage and read the FAQs.

Precision health promises to transform the way Canadians receive medical care. In the near future, doctors may be able to precisely diagnose symptoms based on a patient’s unique genetic makeup and offer personalized treatment that improves health outcomes and saves lives. Genomics research combined with data analytics will lead to better prevention, diagnosis and treatment of diseases, improve the health of Canadians, and make our health care system more effective.

To help make all that a reality, the Honourable Jody Wilson-Raybould, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, on behalf of the Honourable Kirsty Duncan, Minister of Science, today announced two major genomics research investments in British Columbia during a visit to the BC Children’s Hospital. The total investment of $75.9 million comes from the federal and provincial governments, research institutions and private sector partners.

The Minister of Science made the national announcement today in Toronto, highlighting a $255-million investment in genomics research in Canada. This includes a $162-million investment in 15 genomics and precision health projects across Canada through Genome Canada, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and co-funding partners.

Many of the projects focus on paediatric medicine, a globally recognized Canadian research strength. Genomics-based precision health approaches to childhood brain cancer, asthma and arthritis enable earlier diagnoses and provide new opportunities to address root causes of such diseases rather than symptoms. This funding also supports a targeted initiative to address health challenges specific to Indigenous populations, improving diagnostic outcomes for Indigenous children that have genetic diseases and reducing inequities in access to advanced health care between Indigenous and non-Indigenous populations.

The Government of Canada also announced a second major investment to support advanced genomics technology platforms across the country. These technology platforms support the development of improved technologies that underpin research advances in health, agriculture and natural resources. A total of $93 million is being invested in ten platforms nationwide, two of which are in British Columbia. The platforms are receiving $45 million in federal funding through Genome Canada and an additional $48 million from other sources.

These combined investments will provide researchers with access to cutting-edge tools, technologies and services while furthering the Government of Canada’s goal of strengthening and supporting the country’s scientific community.

Quotes

“It is an honour to support some of Canada’s leading genomics and precision health researchers through investments that will allow them to further their discoveries and innovations. Their incredible work brings hope to Canadians living with chronic illnesses, such as cancer, arthritis and cystic fibrosis, while strengthening Canada’s health care system.”

– The Honourable Kirsty Duncan, Minister of Science

“All Canadians stand to benefit from the innovative and collaborative research projects being announced today. The platforms, tools, technologies and services that will be developed through this funding will improve our understanding of many illnesses, particularly those that affect the most vulnerable patients, including children and Indigenous peoples.”

– The Honourable Ginette Petitpas Taylor, Minister of Health

“This investment will support groundbreaking developments in genomics and precision health research, and will help address a wide range of health challenges faced by Canadians, including our most vulnerable populations. This funding will also support researchers across the country who are improving the accuracy of diagnostics for Indigenous children and helping enhance equal access to treatment and care. We will continue to invest in Canadian companies who are leading their field and breaking new ground in the science and technology sectors.”

– The Honourable Jody Wilson-Raybould, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada.

“What’s exciting about these genomics and precision health projects is how clinically oriented they are. Most are led by clinical scientists who deal with patients on a day-to-day basis and are well positioned to apply the research to health care settings. Further, they are not just about developing new therapies to treat diseases but also about early diagnosis and intervention to better curb or manage diseases at their onset.”

– Marc LePage, President and CEO, Genome Canada

“Our understanding of the human genome and epigenetics is advancing at an unprecedented pace. As a result, today we are creating knowledge that will improve health and health care delivery in ways that were unimaginable only years ago. CIHR is proud to partner with Genome Canada on this important initiative and to support the outstanding scientists who are at the forefront of this rapidly growing field of research.”

– Dr. Roderick R. McInnes, Acting President, Canadian Institutes of Health Research

“These projects exemplify the power of genomics as a tool to enable precise diagnosis and treatment for patients with diverse health challenges. Through consistent investment in genomics technology, coupled with the recruitment and support of B.C.’s top researchers, we have positioned B.C. as a global leader in genomics. As a result, clinicians can provide patients and families with personalized treatment options and preventive strategies that offer better health outcomes through cost-effective care.”

– Dr. Pascal Spothelfer, President and CEO, Genome British Columbia

Quick facts

The precision health project teams represent the successful applicants to Genome Canada’s 2017 Large-Scale Applied Research Project Competition: Genomics and Precision Health, a partnership with the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.
The investments in genomics technology platforms are the result of Genome Canada’s 2016 Genomics Technology Platforms – Operations Support and Technology Development Funds
Research that examines the science from the perspective of social sciences and humanities is a key component of every Large-Scale Applied Research Program project. This essential research element is designed to support the development and application of genomics research that maximizes benefits for patients and minimizes risks.

Associated links

Backgrounder – Precision health projects
Backgrounder – Genomics technology platforms

Rapid population growth, a changing climate, and increasing constraints on land, water, and nutrients threaten global food security. Canada must dramatically expand agricultural production to meet increased demand and to offset predicted declines in crop yields in tropical and subtropical countries. This will require that plant breeding be accelerated in Canada, with the goal of developing high yielding, climate-adapted and “planet friendly” varieties.

Currently crop genomic data are rapidly growing in quantity but the ability of crop breeders to easily utilize the data for the benefit of developing new crop varieties is lagging. DivSeek is an international initiative that aims to accelerate plant breeding by leveraging the genetic diversity in the world’s live collections and seed banks (“genebanks”). To be effective, a unified, coordinated and cohesive database is necessary to allow breeders and farmers to access this important information.

Genome Canada, Genome British Columbia and Genome Prairie are collaborating to support the development of an online DivSeek Canada bioinformatics resource on Compute Canada’s state-of-the-art advanced research computing system.

“This investment holds international significance and is the culmination of years of collaboration,” says Dr. Catalina Lopez-Correa, Chief Scientific Officer and Vice President, Sectors, at Genome BC. “DivSeek Canada will ensure that these resources are available and accessible so that people from around the world can make use of this information to develop better and more resilient crops.”

Led by the University of British Columbia’s Dr. Loren Rieseberg, and involving a team with members from BC, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario, the project will deliver integrated, user-friendly tools tailored to the sunflower, flax and lentil breeding communities initially as a demonstration, that can then be extended in the future to other Canadian crops with significant genomic resources.

“The value of this project for the Canadian agricultural industry cannot be underestimated. The project will develop key resources needed by Canadian crop breeders and farmers,” said Marc LePage, Genome Canada’s President and CEO.

“This investment in the Canadian team is intended to trigger additional international support for coordinated efforts that will facilitate equitable global access and benefit sharing of digital sequence information,” said Genome Prairie President and CEO Dr. Reno Pontarollo.

This collaboration is valued at close to $800,000 and was funded through Genome Canada’s Emerging Issues Program. Genome BC and the Global Institute for Food Security have provided substantial funding along with other partners.

A massive new trial in Pennsylvania will find out if health care is ready for routine DNA screening. This marks the world’s largest clinical genome sequencing effort and the first available to the average American as part of standard primary medical care.

Learn More

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/10/health-care-ready-routine-dna-screening-massive-new-trial-will-find-out

NASA’s Twins Study has found that spending time in space increases the rate of DNA methylation across thousands of genes.

Learn More

http://www.frontlinegenomics.com/news/15872/space-travel-alters-gene-expression/?utm_content=buffer41cfe&utm_medium=social&utm_source=linkedin.com&utm_campaign=buffer

The ability to edit RNA and individual DNA base pairs will make gene editing much more precise.

Learn More

https://www.vox.com/2017/10/25/16527370/crispr-gene-editing-harvard-mit-broad

Opening a new chapter in genetic medicine, scientists have devised a method of gene editing that can turn the protein-production machinery of certain cells on and off at will.

Learn More

http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-rna-editing-repair-20171025-htmlstory.html

New CRISPR technology promises to change traditional GMO Breeding, with huge gains for growers.

Learn More

https://www.country-guide.ca/2017/10/24/crispr-technology-to-push-traditional-gmo-plant-breeding-aside/51974/

Precision Medicine in oncology, where genetic testing is used to determine the best drugs to treat cancer patients, is not always so precise when applied to some of the world’s more diverse populations, according to a study led by the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen.)

Learn More

http://www.frontlinegenomics.com/press-release/15868/how-precise-is-precision-medicine-when-applied-to-diverse-populations/?utm_source=social%20media&utm_medium=social%20media&utm_campaign=social%20media

What life is like living with a rare genetic condition called syndactyly. An account of navigating life by Rosemarie Garland- Thomson.

Learn More

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/26/opinion/my-orphan-disease-has-given-me-a-new-family.html

Researchers in China report that they have created healthy pigs with much less body fat using CRISPR. This research was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Learn More

http://time.com/4995237/crispr-gene-editing-pigs-fat/

Scientists from Harvard University have just unveiled a new gene editor that uses the revolutionary CRISPR-Cas9 technology to target and change a single letter in a string of DNA bases — no cutting necessary.

Learn More

http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-dna-gene-editing-20171025-story.html?utm_source=twitter&utm_content=coverage%252CLiu%252Cgene-editing&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=Broad+Institute

Genome BC is pleased to announce a staged investment of $750,000 into CuePath Innovation (CuePath) through its Industry Innovation (I²) Program. CuePath is developing a connectivity platform for patients, their family members and professional caregivers, built around a novel form of smart medication packaging. By combining smart blister packs, cloud analytics and mobile applications, CuePath is increasing prescription adherence and providing family caregivers peace of mind.

The estimated annual cost of medication non-adherence to the Canadian healthcare system is between $7 and $9 billion, and an estimated 125,000 Americans die annually from medication mismanagement. As the prevalence of chronic diseases grows because of an expanding elderly population, ensuring that patients take their medications will be increasingly important to our society as a whole.

“CuePath has developed sensors for medication packaging and a connectivity platform that enables family members and care professionals to ensure their loved ones stay on track with medication,” said Victor Lesau, CuePath CEO. “The product is simple-to-use because it converts existing medication packaging such as blister packs into smart packs, reminds patients to take medication on time, and enables caregivers, pharmacists and other trusted healthcare providers with the ability to remotely monitor a patient’s adherence.”

When a blister pack pill is not released within a prescribed dosing time, an SMS text message is triggered by the sensor embedded in the pack. The SMS alert can be sent to the family and/or care-giver via the cloud. The pack’s sensor can also emit an audio reminder alert to the patient to take their medication. The patient is not required to use a smart phone or any computer. Installation at home simply requires plugging in CuePath’s Hub. There is no change to the patient’s use of the blister pack or their refilling pattern with a pharmacy or a caregiver.

“Genome BC is investing in CuePath to support marketing and sales activities, expand clinical trials and subsequent market entry into North America in 2018,” says Dr. Tony Brooks, Chief Financial Officer and Vice President, Commercialization and Entrepreneurship. “Medication compliance is a huge issue and the ability to track and monitor remotely is a significant need.”

CuePath is a Vancouver-based healthcare technology company on a mission to help seniors and other vulnerable individuals stay healthy and independent with the support of their care team. We aim to provide care professionals with timely and accurate information needed to support users with their medication adherence. CuePath is a 2017 TechStars Seattle graduate, and a Top 10 finalist in the 2016 New Ventures BC competition. www.cuepath.io

For the first time, doctors have used gene therapy to stave off a fatal degenerative brain disease, an achievement that some experts had thought impossible.The key to making the therapy work was HIV.

Learn More

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/05/health/gene-therapy-brain-disease.html?mwrsm=WhatsApp

New research detailing the discovery of a gene that may be responsible for a variety of allergic responses to peanuts and other foods was recently discussed in The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. One of the coauthors of the new paper, Dr. Denise Daley of the University of British Columbia (UBC), believes this gene is an important finding since it could help doctors identify children at risk for food allergies in the future.

This study identified five genetic locations that may be involved in how and whether a person becomes allergic to peanuts through epigenetics. Identifying these locations is significant because it lends support to findings from a previous clinical study in 2015 that found allergies to peanuts were reduced if babies were exposed at a younger age. This information sharply changed medical practice guidelines on early child peanut exposure relatively recently. Dr. Daley’s findings may be an important link in explaining why early exposure or lack thereof influences risk of developing peanut allergies.

As discussed in this article, Dr. Denise Daley also works in areas of related diseases including asthma and eczema. She currently works as a principal investigator on a project called “Epigenetic mechanisms for the development of asthma” led by Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and co-led by Genome BC. For information on this project, contact us at: info@genomebc.ca

Learn More

http://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/peanut-allergy-gene-discovery-could-lead-to-early-diagnosis

Nonbrowning apples developed by Okanagan Specialty Fruits will be offered for sale as bagged slices in up to 400 stores in the United States. Using a technique called gene silencing, Carter and his research team engineered the apple’s DNA to produce less polyphenol oxidase, or PPO, the enzyme that causes the flesh to turn brown.

Learn More

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/609080/gm-apples-that-dont-brown-to-reach-us-shelves-this-fall/

Researchers develop gene test that will give more detailed information on risk to women with BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations

Learn More

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/oct/08/test-for-breast-cancer-risk-could-reduce-pre-emptive-mastectomies

The World Anti-Doping Agency has extended its 2003 ban on “gene doping” to include all forms of gene editing – but it is not clear the agency has the means to enforce this ban.

Learn More

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2149768-anti-doping-agency-to-ban-all-gene-editing-in-sport-from-2018/

The story of exploring the backyard viruses of the pacific northwest with genome sequencing.

Learn More

http://www.fredhutch.org/en/news/center-news/2017/10/pacific-northwest-backyard-viruses.html

NY Times looks at the pros and cons of personal genetic testing and the different companies offering these tests.

Learn More

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/10/03/well/live/personal-genetic-testing-is-here-do-we-need-it.html?referer=https://www.google.com/

Love can lead to great things. For Sharon Terry, the journey to discover the truth about a rare genetic disease that affects both of her children, pseudoxanthoma elasticum (PXE), starts with a powerful love for her children and expands to those impacted by the 7,000 rare diseases that exist. Worldwide, approximately 400 million people suffer from rare, often undiagnosed, diseases.

The 8^th Annual Don Rix Distinguished Keynote Address is taking place today in Vancouver and Terry will be addressing a sold-out crowd. Terry’s talk will focus on the need for participation of all stakeholders in research and is titled: If you are not at the table, you are on the menu: Participatory science in health.

At this year’s keynote, Terry will tell the fascinating story of starting out as “just a mom” with no official credentials in the biomedical realm. Today she is a major player in the science advocacy and policy space for rare genetic disorders and has forged an important path to diagnose PXE. Over the past two decades she has led a landmark movement to address genetic conditions and brought this issue to the attention of President Barack Obama.

In the early stages of her children’s diagnosis, Terry observed that researchers were not sharing data outside their institutions which limited the knowledge of the disease to anyone on the outside. In 2000, Terry and her husband were able to break down these walls by discovering and patenting the gene responsible for PXE and making it freely available to others. They also created a diagnostic test.

“Like in any thriving industry, research participants have a role to play” says Terry, “The answer lies in all of us working together, sharing our data, our biological samples and ourselves.”

Terry leads Genetic Alliance as the President and CEO, a network of health advocacy, patient advocacy, research and health organizations. Terry has helped implement non-expert led endeavors and infrastructure that allows the participation of all stakeholders in research and advocates for patients’ rights to access their own data. Genetic Alliance’s message about data sharing and participants as partners was adopted by President Obama’s Precision Medicine Initiative. Terry is also the founding CEO of PXE International, a research advocacy organization for the genetic condition PXE. She serves in leadership roles for many collaborations focused on productively disrupting research and policy. Terry led the coalition that fought for the passage of the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act in the United States.

Genome BC is proud to present Sharon Terry to the Vancouver community. This will be her first major keynote talk in Vancouver after her popular TED Talk “Science didn’t understand my kids’ rare disease until I decided to study it” reached over one million people online.

NOTE TO EDITORS: Photos and limited interviews available; please contact Genome BC.

This article outlines the companies in the US and Canada that are marketing canine DNA testing to consumers, vets, and breeders. The canine tests are buccal swab kits used to determine a dog’s breed mix or genetic disease susceptibility.

Learn More

https://www.genomeweb.com/microarrays-multiplexing/dog-dna-testing-market-grows-vendors-target-consumers-breeders-vets

According to a study from the Mac Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology published in the American Journal of Human Genetics, DNA from our neanderthal cousins may influence the skin tone, ease of tanning, hair colour and sleeping patterns of modern day Europeans.

Learn More

http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/10/05/555592707/neanderthal-genes-help-shape-how-many-modern-humans-look

Francisco Barro’s team at the Institute for Sustainable Agriculture in Cordoba, Spain are using genetic modification to get rid of a group of gluten proteins called gliadins to develop wheat that doesn’t trigger an immune reaction in coeliacs.

Learn More

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2148596-genetically-modified-wheat-used-to-make-coeliac-friendly-bread/

According to Carl Zimmer, our DNA contains roughly 100,000 pieces of viral DNA. Altogether, they make up about 8 percent of the human genome and scientists are only starting to figure out what this viral DNA is doing to us.

Learn More

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/04/science/ancient-viruses-dna-genome.html

A recent episode of Law & Order depicted a character with a gene that made him commit a crime. This article examines “criminal genes” and if they actually have any merit.

Learn More

http://www.popsci.com/genetic-behavior-evidence-court

A new study reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences stated that engineered mutant butterflies reveal the roots of wing patterns. The authors of the new study rearranged colors on butterfly wings by deleting a single gene using CRISPR. The gene’s absence had a dramatic effect in seven butterfly species, including some that aren’t closely related.

Learn More

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2017/09/19/mutant-butterflies-reveal-the-genetic-roots-of-colorful-wings/?utm_term=.644f4c7daf4a

An international team of scientists have discovered genes from bone fragments in Malawi dating back 8,100 years. The researchers also retrieved DNA from 15 other ancient people in eastern and southern Africa, and compared the genes to those of living Africans.

Learn More

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/21/science/africa-dna-migration.html

Scientists at the Francis Crick Institute in London are using genome editing to understand embryo development, which could help uncover the causes of recurrent miscarriages.

Learn More

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/sep/20/dna-editing-in-human-embryos-reveals-role-of-fertility-master-gene

This article examines the issue of parasites in the salmon farming industry and takes a look at possible solutions such as breeding for genetic resistance.

Learn More

http://nationalpost.com/pmn/news-pmn/any-lice-with-that-salmon-parasite-plagues-global-industry