Professor Turi King

As many of you know, I’ve written a book The Secrets of Our DNA: how genetics changed the world. So, I thought I would tell you a bit about what it’s about, why I wrote it and read you an extract.

Professor Turi King discusses the results of a scientific paper about the evolution of hearing, which explores the combined impact of biological and environmental factors on how our ears respond to sound. The study was the brainchild of Dr. Patricia Balaresque who got really interested in the different factors, such as our sex or environment, that might have shaped our hearing sensitivity. This groundbreaking study, ‘Sex, and Environment Shape Cochlear Sensitivity in Human Populations Worldwide,’ is published in Scientific reports. It was led by Dr Patricia Balaresque at the Centre for Biodiversity and Environmental Research (CRBE) in Toulouse, supported by the Eco-Anthropology unit (EA-CNRS Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle / University of Paris) and the Toulouse Institute of Research in Computer Science (IRIT-CNRS / University of Toulouse) and others.

In Ireland during the 1940s, the stigma meant that most unmarried mothers had no option but to place their babies for adoption. 72-year-old Viv came on DNA Family Secrets hoping to find her older sister, who was taken from her mum as the baby. In this podcast Turi catches up with Viv a year after her episode was broadcast.

In the last 50 years, the number of single parent households in the UK has almost quadrupled to 23%. 43-year-old Sarah never met here dad and came to DNA Family Secrets to see if he could be found.

The mystery of Kaspar Hauser and whether he was the hereditary Prince of Baden is considered to be one of the greatest historical mysteries of the 19th century. Previous genetic research trying to answer the question gave conflicting results. Professor Turi King discusses her work and the work carried out by the team, led by Walther Parson, which brought new genetic techniques to bear on the question and which shows that Kaspar Hauser was not the hereditary Prince of Baden.

91-year-old Jean was evacuated in World War II. She never saw her mother again and was told that she died before the war ended. She appeared on series three of DNA Family Secrets to try and find out if the stories about her mother's death were true. In this podcast Turi catches up with Jean a year after her episode was broadcast.

Sir Paul Nurse was in his 50s when he discovered that the person he thought was his sister was his mum and the couple he thought were his parents were really his grandparents. With all of them now passed away, there was no one he could ask as to the identity of his father. Years later, he took a DNA test and Professor Turi King traced his father for him.

Professor Daniel Panne discusses his work looking at the structure of chromosomes.

Nearly a 100,000 people in Britain were brought up in foster care in the 1970s, 50-year-old Matthew was one of them. Although he knew his birth mother was English, he didn't know his father's identity. Matthew appeared on the second series of DNA Family Secrets to try and find out where his father was from.

Jackie is one of over three million children orphaned during World War II, for nearly 60 years, he and his wife Lita have been searching for any information about his past.