Science Education

Formerly known as European Learning Laboratory for the Life Sciences

Our inspiring educational experiences share the scientific discoveries of EMBL with young learners aged 10-19 years and teachers in Europe and beyond. We belong to EMBL’s Science Education and Public Engagement office.

EMBL Insight Lecture 2016: available as video-on-demand

EMBL Insight Lecture 2016 with Ewan Birney is now available as video-on-demand.

Did you miss the EMBL Insight Lecture 2016 “Genomics and Big Data: Transforming our Understanding of the Processes of Life” by Professor Ewan Birney?

We are pleased to announce that the video of Ewan’s talk is now available as video-on-demand and can be streamed via this site. The media player provides the option to choose between a “slide-plus-speaker view” and “slide-only view”, and allows to jump to specific parts of the lecture.

Image credit: Robert Slowley Photography
Image credit: Robert Slowley Photography

Professor Ewan Birney, who is Director of the EMBL’s European Bioinformatics Institute, and his research team study genetic variation and algorithms. Over the past twenty years Ewan Birney has played an important role in the genomics, initially as part of the team that helped sequence the first human genome and subsequently in the relatively new field of bioinformatics, where computer and life sciences meet. In his talk, Ewan Birney provides a short introduction to the biology of DNA and gives an insight into his personal involvement in the Human Genome Project. He then goes on to assess the role of cutting-edge genome sequencing on human health, discussing cancer, pathogens and rare diseases. In the final part of his talk, Ewan Birney asks the audience the question how comfortable they are with surrendering their personal data, comparing and contrasting data on loyalty shopping cards and genomes.

The lecture on the 2 December 2016 at EMBL-EBI in Hinxton, UK was attended by 80 local students in the auditorium and 800 students from 16 different European and non-European countries who dialled in via live streaming. During the Q&A session, participants on-site as well as via the web engaged in lively discussion and quizzed Ewan about his research work.

To watch the lecture, click here.