Tim Spector's Blog, page 4

El fin de la dictadura de los genes

En la película GATTACA, los genes humanos han aterrizado en una sociedad de un futuro cercano imponiendo su dictadura. La historia dirigida por Mike Nichols habla de un muchacho, encarnado por Ethan Hawke, que es concebido “de la forma tradicional”, en la parte trasera de un coche, y no a la carta, donde los ingenieros […]

Identically Different. Kirkus Review

Genes dictate our anatomy, emotions and behavior, except when they don’t, according to this ingenious account of how inheritance and environments—including our parents’ environment—vie to make an individual. Physician and TV commentator Spector (Genetic Epidemiology/King’s Coll. London; Your Genes Unzipped, 2003) fills his book with entertaining anecdotes of identical twins (he is director of the […]

Identically Different: Why we can change our genes. Nonfiction review

Spector, a genetic epidemiologist, has a wealth of case studies to draw from for his research on genes and epigenetics (the mechanism by which nongenomic elements affect genes): he’s the founder and director of the TwinsUK registry, home to data on over 12,000 pairs of twins. He’s spent the past two decades studying genetically identical […]

Abuse, adoption and epigenetics

Tim Spector brings to light the harrowing circumstances of parents of adopted children who were left to confront major behavioral problems and violence without adequate institutional support and how epigenetic changes can have major consequences for an individual’s empathy and their capacity to form positive relationships long after the negative environment has been remove. Access […]

New York Times

30 July 2013 – Identically Different: Why we can change our genes. Review In this accessible contribution to the nature-nurture debate, the British epidemiologist Tim Spector, who runs the world’s largest twin study, argues that environmental factors can alter the way our genes are expressed. Going gene by gene — from genetic variants that have […]

The Lady – Review

05 July 2013 – Identically Different. Review by Ijeoma Onweluzo This science book guides us, via artful storytelling and groundbreaking research using identical twins, to reconsider the flexibility and power of our genes. Its chapters focus on gene categories, such as the “happiness” and “fidelity” gene, suggesting that they are more pliable than fixed.

Sunday Business Post Identically Different Review

Angelina Jolie’s recent decision to have a double mastectomy, after learning she possesed a gene which greatly increased her chances of developing breast cancer, has catapulted the subject of genetics from the outer fringes of public debate to the mainstream. So it seems Kings’ College London Professor Tim Spector has unwittingly produced his book on […]

The Sin of our Grandfathers

A special report by the New Scientist recently caught my eye. The report by Linda Geddes on 30 June 2012 claims that lung cancer is on the rise and focuses on the difficulties of getting funding for an illness that most people view negatively because of its association with smoking. The incidence of lung cancer […]