TIME | 15 April 2010, 4pm onwards
LOCATION | CSAFE Seminar Room, , Dunedin
SPEAKER | Tony Merriman
The changing environment in which we live impacts on our lifestyles in many ways, and is quite different from the environment in which our genetic inheritance evolved. In many ways we are maladapted to a Westernised environment. Using fructose in gout (and perhaps vitamin D deficiency in childhood (type 1) diabetes), I will illustrate the concept that the changing environment is exacting greater impact on genetically susceptible individuals. Policy initiatives that target the environment, rather than the individual, are more likely to have an impact on reducing the burden of disease.
Tony is a geneticist in the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Otago. His lab focuses on understanding the genetic basis of gout in the New Zealand population, and how the modern environment impacts on people with a genetic risk for gout.