Abstract Bioscience

Alastair McKee from the Quadram Institute discusses his paper linking the microbiome to breast cancer.​Our microbiota help us digest the food we eat, but also has effects on health and disease that reach far beyond the gut - including cancer. Antibiotic drugs taken to combat bacterial infections also have adverse effects on our beneficial microbiota. So what can we learn about the ways the microbiota influences disease by using antibiotics to treat mice with cancer?

Coauthors Chris Morgan and John Fozard from the John Innes Centre join me to talk about their recent paper.​Using a combination of high-tech microscopy and mathematical modelling they have shown that relatively simple behaviour of a single protein plays a key role in how how parental DNA combines during the production of sex cells.​Working with Arabidopsis thaliana, John and Chris have developed a model for determining crossover patterning that could be operating during meiosis right across the tree of life.

Ryan Brock, from the University of East Anglia, discusses his paper on the recent colonisation of the UK by the tree bumblebee.​What can several approaches to investigating this species' genetic diversity have tell us about how it made the jump from mainland Europe?What do this study, and others like it, tell us about the 'genetic paradox of invasion', and how populations can thrive in challenging colonisation situations?

A short introduction to Abstract Bioscience - a podcast bringing you the latest research from across the Norwich Research Park, and beyond.​Host Michael Pointer introduces the show, gives some details about the kinds of topics we will be discussing in future episodes, and lets you know how you can listen.