Perils of Being Human – A Conversation about Kinetochore Humanization with Dr. Guðjón Ólafsson

In this episode of Genetics in Your World, GSA Early Career Scientist Multimedia Subcommittee member Allie Hutchings interviews Dr. Evan Dewey of Winthrop University about the functions of Blm helicase N-terminal IDR. Read Dr. Dewey's paper titled, “Functions of the Bloom syndrome helicase N-terminal intrinsically disordered region,” published in the March 2025 issue of GENETICS: https://doi.org/10.1093/genetics/iyaf005. Music: Loopster Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ Podcast Notes:Bloom syndrome helicase (Blm) has important roles in maintaining genome stability. About half the protein is predicted to be intrinsically disordered (IDR), and its functions are poorly understood. The authors of this study identified regions that are locally conserved in closely related Drosophila species, then deleted these and assayed various functions. They find that each region is required for a subset of Blm functions. The authors’ modeling suggests these regions adopt structure in complex with Top2alpha and the results provide novel insights into Blm IDR functions. Dr. Evan Dewey would like to acknowledge the following colleagues: Colleen C. Bereda, Dr. Jeff Sekelsky, Dr. Christopher A Johnston, Denise Soroka, Dr. Mitch McVey, Carolyn Turcotte, Dr. Nila Pazhayam, Mohamed A. Nasr, Priscila Santa Rosa, Susan McMahan, Dr. Robert J. Duronio, Dr. Gregory Matera, Dr. Dan McKay, and Dr. Richard Cripps.Thank you to the GSA Early Career Scientist Multimedia Subcommittee, in particular the production team who worked on this episode: Allie Hutchings, Interviewer; Sarah Shahba and Laetitia Chauve, Researchers. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of Genetics in Your World, GSA Early Career Scientist Multimedia Subcommittee member Faye Romero interviews Dr. Steven J. Knapp of the University of California, Davis about the genetics underlying increased hybrid performance in strawberry cultivars. Read Dr. Knapp’s paper titled, “A dominance hypothesis argument for historical genetic gains and the fixation of heterosis in octoploid strawberry,” published in the December 2024 issue of G3: Genes|Genomes|Genetics: https://doi.org/10.1093/genetics/iyae159.Music: Loopster Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/Thank you to the GSA Early Career Scientist Multimedia Subcommittee, in particular the production team who worked on this episode: Faye Romero, Interviewer and Researcher; Sarah Gilmour, Audio Quality Control Coordinator. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of Genetics in Your World, GSA Early Career Scientist Multimedia Subcommittee chair Hassan Bukhari has a conversation with Dr. Stuart Newfeld of Arizona State University about the Fourth Chromosome Resource Project. Read Dr. Newfeld’s paper titled, “Fourth Chromosome Resource Project: a comprehensive resource for genetic analysis in Drosophila that includes humanized stocks,” published in the February 2024 issue of GENETICS: https://doi.org/10.1093/genetics/iyad201.  Music: Loopster Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of Genetics in Your World, GSA Early Career Scientist Multimedia Subcommittee member Sarah Gilmour has a conversation with Dr. Guðjón Ólafsson of NYU Langone Health and University of Iceland about his attempts to “humanize” the yeast kinetochore and how the difficulties of doing so teach us about the evolution of essential kinetochore proteins. Read Dr. Ólafsson’s paper titled, “Humanization reveals pervasive incompatibility of yeast and human kinetochore components,” published in the January 2024 issue of G3: Genes|Genomes|Genetics: https://doi.org/10.1093/g3journal/jkad260.  Music: Loopster Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of Genetics in Your World, GSA Early Career Scientist Multimedia Subcommittee member Sarah Renee Phillips has a conversation with Dr. Scott Dawson of UC Davis about the unique biology and challenges of studying the parasite Giardia lamblia. Read Dr. Dawson’s paper titled, “Harnessing the power of new genetic tools to illuminate Giardia biology and pathogenesis,” published in the June 2024 issue of GENETICS: https://doi.org/10.1093/genetics/iyae038. Music: Loopster Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of Genetics in Your World, Early Career Scientist Multimedia Subcommittee member Tammy Lee has a conversation with Dr. Jordan Brown, a recent alumnus from the University of Chicago, about factors involved in gene silencing mediated by small RNAs. Read Dr. Brown’s paper titled, “Sensitized piRNA reporter identifies multiple RNA processing factors involved in piRNA-mediated gene silencing,” published in the August 2023 issue of GENETICS: ​​https://doi.org/10.1093/genetics/iyad095.  Music: Loopster Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of Genetics in Your World, Sarah Renee Phillips interviews Dr. Christina Cuomo about her paper "Impact of pathogen genetics on clinical phenotypes in a population of Talaromyces marneffei from Vietnam," published in the August 2023 issue of GENETICS. Dr. Cuomo elaborates on the diversity and evolution of a deadly fungal pathogen from southeast Asia and how she and her colleagues used a combination of population genomics and genome-wide association studies to identify evolutionary pattern and process as well as genes influencing patient experiences and health outcomes. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this installment of Genetics in Your World, we talk to Dr. Hunter Hill of the University of Montana. He discusses unexpected recent discoveries made while completing his PhD with Dr. Kent Golic at the University of Utah, surrounding new and exciting data about the breakage pattern of chromosomes in Drosophila. He provides advice for others when encountering obstacles during their graduate studies. Check out the paper, "Dicentric chromosome breakage in Drosophila melanogaster is influenced by pericentric heterochromatic and occurs in non-conserved hotspots," published in the June 2023 issue of GENETICS. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this installment of Genetics in Your World, we talk to Ting Gong of UC Davis. She discusses the surprising results she found when disrupting meiotic chromosome segregation in C. elegans. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Join us for a special episode of Genetics in Your World where we interview previous National Institutes of Health (NIH) director Dr. Francis Collins. In this episode, Francis discusses his pathway into science, how he deals with failures in research, and his advice for future scientists. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.