Developmental plasticity: the 3rd dimension of phenotypic variation and disease risk

Published on July 31, 2022   46 min

A selection of talks on Methods

Please wait while the transcript is being prepared...
0:00
I'm Joe Nadeau from the Maine Medical Center Research Institute in Portland, Maine. The topic of this presentation is developmental plasticity, the 3rd dimension of phenotypic variation and disease risk.
0:14
What if our understanding of human biology is missing a primary determinant of who we are? We want to understand how we came to be the way we are- our form, and our function. Both our shared features that define us as humans, and the differences that make us individuals. Similar questions can be asked not only for us but also for all lifeforms; even bacteria show individuality. I will argue this in this presentation that the chance events and accidents occurring early in development put our lives on distinct, and seemingly unpredictable trajectories towards alternative phenotypic outcomes. I will discuss the background of this problem. The evidence that the conventional models are limited; the evidence for this 3rd dimension, a model for how this dimension might act in concert with genes and the environment. Then, the first principles of what we've discovered in experimental model systems that are relevant to common human conditions, where mechanisms can be defined, and models tested experimentally.
1:16
The pioneering work of Sir Ronald Fisher, more than a century ago established the principles that have guided genetic studies in all species since then. He argued that our phenotypes, P, are the result of the combined action of genes, G, and environment, E. And then e, which is a measure of the error in our measurement; either measurement error or the inherent noise of the biological system. This can also represent the phenotypic variation, the V is the variance, which is equal to the genetic variants plus the environmental variance, plus the error variance. The problems with this model are that it's additive, it's linear, and it's deterministic. It's a good model to start as an initial focus to develop theories, and model systems. But it probably doesn't reflect the full repertoire of the complexity in biologic systems.

Quiz available with full talk access. Request Free Trial or Login.

Hide

Developmental plasticity: the 3rd dimension of phenotypic variation and disease risk

Embed in course/own notes