How does exercise influence your body beyond the typical weight loss narrative? In this thought-provoking episode, Dr. Matt Romero—professor of Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology at UC Santa Cruz—joins us for a deep dive into the world of gene regulation, tissue-specific expression, and the unsung genetic elements that may hold the key to better health and performance.
We explore how exercise affects your genome at the cellular and molecular level, including the role of enhancers, transcription factors, LINE-1 elements, and even cutting-edge gene editing tools like CRISPR-dCas9. From practical implications to theoretical frontiers, this is a nerd-friendly episode for anyone curious about molecular biology, epigenetics, and how movement talks to your DNA.🧬
Topics include:
- Why only 2% of your genome codes for proteins
- How enhancers regulate gene expression in a tissue-specific way
- The surprising health benefits of exercise beyond weight loss-CRISPR, epigenetic modulation, and futuristic therapeutics
- The connection between gene expression and human evolution
- How Long Interspersed Nuclear Element-1 (LINE-1), a family of retrotransposons, or "jumping genes," are a significant part of the human genome and may cause genetic variation and potentially contribute to diseases like cancer.
🔧 Audio note: We acknowledge some audio quality issues at a few time points in this episode. We've cleaned it up as best we could and hope the quality of the content still shines through. Thank you for sticking with us—we’re continually improving!Subscribe to our channel to receive notifications of new episodes and content!You can stay up-to-date with Dr. Matthew Romero by following him on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/matthew_romero_phd/ and Google Scholar (https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=o-miQNEAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao).
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