Anna Dearman and Jasmine Ratcliff are interdisciplinary PhD students at the Institute for Social and Economic Research, University of Essex, who study mental health from a bio-social perspective. They attended the Festival of Genomics & Biodata which was held at the ExCeL Centre in London on January 29th-30th 2025.
Modernising medicine
The first speaker was Dame Sue Hill of NHS England. She highlighted the benefits of genomic medicine: speed (e.g. respiratory metagenomic testing), reduced invasiveness (e.g. blood testing of tumour DNA) and precision (e.g. personalised treatment). She and others described how access to genomic tests has been improved, via efforts such as the NHS Cancer Vaccine Launch Pad. Research is ongoing to improve services; for example, 10% of referrals for rare mutation testing in severely ill children cannot be fulfilled because scientists currently need DNA samples from the child and both parents, but a new technology could overcome this limitation, as described by Andrew Parrish, Emma Baple and Sean Humphray. In future, Dame Hill hopes that “multi-omic” testing will be used in the NHS, while Richard Scott of Genomics England hopes that half of healthcare encounters will be informed by genomics by 2035.
Looking beyond the UK, Jane Hirst spoke about a digital intervention to improve pregnancy outcomes in rural India, where mortality from cardiometabolic disease is common. Mothers were followed up for at least a year, in order to break the link between complicated pregnancies and future health risks.
Research
The dangers of genomics
Dr Adam Rutherford gave a thought-provoking keynote talk about scientific racism. He spoke about how we often celebrate the scientific achievements of our predecessors without fully addressing the harmful political ideologies behind them. Adam explored the history of genetics and eugenics, highlighted how the US right is distorting science to support its racist agenda, and challenged us to rethink how genetics is taught at the high school level, suggesting that it might be time for a much-needed overhaul in order to combat eugenics and racist thinking.
(Anna: I would add that we need to raise awareness of the issues which can substantially distort the so-called “genetic architecture” of a trait when using genome-wide association studies, such as confounding due to family and demographic effects, and selection bias, see examples in papers in Nature Genetics, Nature Human Genetics and Nature Communications!)
Building on the theme of socio-genomics, the festival featured several presenters exploring a diverse range of bio-social research topics. Below, we focus on those related to our respective fields.
The gut microbiome
Jasmine Ratcliff
Research suggests a link between the gut microbiome and mental health in adults, and with growing longitudinal data, the field is advancing rapidly. Professor Nigel Field discussed how early-life exposures may shape the microbiota-gut-brain axis (a communication network between the gut and brain) and stressed the need for birth cohort studies and genetic epidemiology to uncover causal links. He also introduced Microbes, Milk, Mental Health and Me, a new project exploring how gut microbes and feeding practices influence brain development and well-being.
From an interdisciplinary perspective, gut microbiome research is crucial, given its strong ties to environmental factors and mental health. However, Dr. Alexandre Almeida in his talk highlighted that over 60% of gut bacteria and viruses remain unidentified, highlighting how much remains to be discovered. Despite this, microbiome-targeted therapies offer exciting potential for future health interventions, especially in mental health.
Mental health and genomics
Anna Dearman
Christopher Murgatroyd presented on epigenetics and stress – the very topic which inspired me to pursue bio-social research years ago. Animal research suggests that stress is embodied via epigenetic marks on our DNA which affect us long-term, but in accordance with my reading (which has shown that this is rarely replicated using human population datasets) Christopher’s recent study failed to find a link between prenatal stress and “gestational epigenetic age”.
Richard Dear’s research looks at broad trends of gene expression in relation to adolescent brain development. He demonstrated that genetic risk factors for schizophrenia are associated with disruption to a specific pattern of gene expression, which affects myelination and synaptic pruning in the brain.
Finally, Karoline Kuchenbaecker presented on the DIVERGE study, which identified bio-social factors influencing treatment-resistant depression in Pakistan. Social support was the main protective factor, but genetic variants in a well-known drug metaboliser gene also played a role.
Our thoughts
Anna
I applaud the recent and ongoing strides in genomic medicine in England, but if the government is serious about health of its constituents it needs to go much further. Life expectancy in the UK is going backwards, and austerity has been linked to excess deaths. They need to tackle the social and commercial determinants of health by e.g. reducing poverty and penalising junk food corporations.
Jasmine
As a Soc-B student exploring the connections between socioeconomic factors, the gut microbiome, and mental health, I was excited to see more research efforts using shotgun metagenomics. Health policy must recognise the microbiome as a key bridge between environment and health. Marginalised groups—by race, sexuality, or socioeconomic status—face a higher disease burden, making it crucial to uncover the biological drivers of these health inequities.
What are genomics and biodata?
Genomics is the study of DNA - the genetic code in living things. Biodata is the information we get from measuring not only DNA, but other molecules (e.g. proteins) and other biological read-outs (e.g. brain scans).
The festival was hosted by Frontline Genomics, who published a handy biological glossary which readers might find useful. While genomics and biodata have many applications, the festival focuses on human health.
