Future Seminars
Seminar Colour Guide:
| Hamburg Speaker | |
| Hamburg Speaker | |
| External Faculty Speaker | |
| External Faculty Speaker | |
| Hamburg Speaker | |
| External Faculty Speaker | |
| Hamburg Speaker | |
| EMBL Distinguished Visitor Lecture | |
| External Faculty Speaker | |
| EMBL - Sapienza Lecture | Friday, 2 October 2020, 11:00Epigenetics of stress allostasis: somatic mechanisms for germ cell programming of offspring developmentTracy L. Bale, Center for Epigenetic Research in Child Health and Brain Development, University of Maryland School of Medicine, USAHost: Cornelius Gross / Andrea MeleSapienza Università di Roma - Aula Odeion - Museo dell'Arte Classica - P.le Aldo Moro, 5 - Roma, EMBL Rome Abstract: Epigenetics of stress allostasis: somatic mechanisms for germ cell programming of offspring developmentTracy L. Bale, J. Chan, C. Morgan, N.A. Leu, S. Ament, B. Garcia, M. Kane, C.N. Epperson Parental lifetime exposures to perturbations such as stress, infection, malnutrition, and advanced age have been linked with an increased risk for offspring disease, including a strong association with neurodevelopmental disorders. Our studies have focused on identifying the causal biological mechanisms whereby information in the environment can be transmitted in sperm. In these studies, we demonstrate a causal role for somatic-to-germline transmission of stress information capable of altering fetal neurodevelopment via extracellular vesicles (EVs) in a preclinical model, and we further establish the translational potential of this model in a human cohort. We identified broad histone and transcriptomic alterations in mouse epididymal epithelial cells (EECs) in vivo, with corresponding persistent changes in miRNA and proteomic extracellular vesicle cargo secreted from pure caput EEC populations in vitro. In these studies, the transmission of paternal stress and changes in epigenetic marks only occur following a stress recovery period suggesting a cellular allostatic shift in chromatin programming. Using a transgenic approach, we demonstrated in vivo that the EEC glucocorticoid receptor, a central node of cellular stress mechanisms, serves a key role in this cellular programming where genetic knockdown of this receptor rescued the germline transmission of the offspring stress phenotype. We further established the causal involvement of EEC EVs utilizing intracytoplasmic sperm injection of caput sperm incubated with EVs secreted following stress treatment recovery. Translationally, we have examined similar stress programming changes in human sperm miRNA content. We utilized within and between human subject comparisons of sperm samples and neuropsychiatric perceived stress reports collected repeatedly over six months to identify a distinct miRNA expression pattern from subjects showing a post-stress recovery state. |
| Science and Society | Friday, 9 October 2020, 11:00Understanding urban environments in relation to population health Manuel Franco, University of Alcalá, Alcalá de Henares, Madrid, Spain, SpainHost: Lucia von Bredow / Cornelius GrossCNR Seminar Room, EMBL Rome Abstract: The Heart Healthy Hoods (HHH) project aimed to study the associations between the social and physical features of the urban environment and population cardiovascular health in the city of Madrid. The HHH project characterised Madrid social and physical urban environment in terms of tobacco, alcohol, food and physical activity, applying different quantitative, qualitative, GIS and participatory methodologies. The HHH team included pre-doctoral and post-doctoral researchers, co-investigators and technicians from the fields of public health, epidemiology, primary care, geography, sociology, anthropology, nursing and biology.
The HHH project has a unique and high-risk design combining urban exposure measurements with health outcomes data collected from the primary care system in the whole city of Madrid. A longitudinal cohort population-based study with 1720 participants aged 40-75 has been stablished in collaboration with over 400 primary care professionals. A follow up study of the anonymised electronic health records of 1,4 million aged 40-75 Madrid citizens who are primary care users. |
| Hamburg Speaker | |
| EMBL Distinguished Visitor Lecture | |
| Science and Society | Friday, 26 February 2021, 14:00Challenging the Misrepresentation of Science and Evidence in Public LifeTracey Brown, OBE, Sense About Science, United KingdomHost: Lucia von BredowIBS Seminar Room, EMBL Grenoble Abstract: There is much concern about the public regard for standards and norms of evidence and anxiety that carefully assembled facts and data are becoming seemingly dispensable. In 2016, ?post-truth? officially entered the dictionary; in the years since, commentators have worried that societies are no longer interested in the carefully assembled data and conclusions of scientific inquiry. Across Europe, conferences have sprung up among research and regulatory bodies asking how to operate in a world of Facebook filter bubbles and alternative facts.
Amid this anxiety, we are in danger of seeing only memes that reinforce it, of believing that people just hear what they are already disposed to hear, that there is no scope for persuasion and factual credibility is pointless. Sense about Science?s experience of working with the public tells a different story - in fact, many different stories, of the public interest in sound science and evidence. That interest in science and evidence is borne out in surveys: scientists are still trusted to tell the truth and are the only group to enjoy consistently strong public trust since the 1970s. In the UK, an Ipsos MORI 2016 poll found that 86% of people want the government to consult experts on complex subjects. Working with the public reminds us that monitoring and analysing are key to public empowerment and democratic accountability; and it expands our imagination about how researchers can collaborate with the public more effectively. Sense about Science's public-led, expert-fed approach has served up some interesting lessons for discussion. The question before the research world therefore is how to equip people to make sense of their natural and social systems: how can we truly embark on those journeys together, with the public and in the public interest? |
| EMBL Distinguished Visitor Lecture | |
| EMBL - Sapienza Lecture |