Kat Arney

Last updated

Kat Arney
Born
Katharine Luisa Arney

Italy
NationalityBritish
Alma mater University of Cambridge (PhD)
Known forScience blogging
Science podcasts
Scientific career
Fields Cancer research
Institutions
Thesis Epigenetic modification in the mouse zygote and regulation of imprinted genes  (2002)
Doctoral advisor Azim Surani [1]
Other academic advisors Amanda Fisher [1]
Website katarney.wordpress.com

Katharine Luisa Arney is a British science communicator, broadcaster, author, [2] and the founder and creative director of communications consultancy First Create the Media. [3] She was a regular co-host of The Naked Scientists , a BBC Radio programme and podcast, and also hosted the BBC Radio 5 Live Science Show [4] and the BBC Radio 4 series Did the Victorians Ruin the World [5] She has written numerous articles and columns for Science , [6] The Guardian , [7] New Scientist [8] the BBC and others. [9] [10]

Contents

Education

Arney was educated at the University of Cambridge where she was awarded a PhD in 2002 for research into epigenetic modification in the mouse zygote and regulation of imprinted genes. [11] Her PhD was supervised by Azim Surani [1] [12] and included research on Insulin-like growth factor 2 and the H19 gene. [13] She went on to do postdoctoral research at Imperial College London working in the laboratory of Amanda Fisher. [1] [14] [15]

Career

Arney is a strong advocate for involvement of women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), but "hates pink" - she considers attempts to make science look more "girlie" to be patronising and unnecessary. [16]

From 2004 to 2016 she was science communications manager for Cancer Research UK. [17] One notable success in this role was the "#NoMakeupSelfie" hashtag as it trended in August 2014; this was noted by CRUK's social media team who used a photograph of Arney – one of the charity's main media spokespeople – to publicise the SMS number for donations. After more than 5 million views, the hashtag raised in excess of £8 million for Cancer Research UK. [18]

Her first book, Herding Hemingway’s Cats, which was published in January 2016 by Bloomsbury Publishing, covers the state of knowledge of the human genome, the advances made since the 1950s and what remains unknown. It also addresses misconceptions about epigenetics and non-DNA inheritance. [19] [20]

In 2020 she published the book Rebel Cell: Cancer, Evolution, and the New Science of Life's Oldest Betrayal. [21]

Her sister Helen Arney is a musician with whom she sometimes collaborates. [22]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dolly (sheep)</span> First cloned mammal (1996–2003)

Dolly was a female Finn-Dorset sheep and the first mammal that was cloned from an adult somatic cell. She was cloned by associates of the Roslin Institute in Scotland, using the process of nuclear transfer from a cell taken from a mammary gland. Her cloning proved that a cloned organism could be produced from a mature cell from a specific body part. Contrary to popular belief, she was not the first animal to be cloned.

Genomic imprinting is an epigenetic phenomenon that causes genes to be expressed or not, depending on whether they are inherited from the female or male parent. Genes can also be partially imprinted. Partial imprinting occurs when alleles from both parents are differently expressed rather than complete expression and complete suppression of one parent's allele. Forms of genomic imprinting have been demonstrated in fungi, plants and animals. In 2014, there were about 150 imprinted genes known in mice and about half that in humans. As of 2019, 260 imprinted genes have been reported in mice and 228 in humans.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cancer Research UK</span> Cancer research and awareness charity

Cancer Research UK (CRUK) is the world's largest independent cancer research organisation. It is registered as a charity in the United Kingdom and Isle of Man, and was formed on 4 February 2002 by the merger of The Cancer Research Campaign and the Imperial Cancer Research Fund. Cancer Research UK conducts research using both its own staff and grant-funded researchers. It also provides information about cancer and runs campaigns aimed at raising awareness and influencing public policy.

Karen Heather Vousden, CBE, FRS, FRSE, FMedSci is a British medical researcher. She is known for her work on the tumour suppressor protein, p53, and in particular her discovery of the important regulatory role of Mdm2, an attractive target for anti-cancer agents. From 2003 to 2016, she was the director of the Cancer Research UK Beatson Institute in Glasgow, UK, moving back to London in 2016 to take up the role of Chief Scientist at CRUK and Group Leader at the Francis Crick Institute.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">H19 (gene)</span> Negative regulation (or limiting) of body weight and cell proliferation

H19 is a gene for a long noncoding RNA, found in humans and elsewhere. H19 has a role in the negative regulation of body weight and cell proliferation. This gene also has a role in the formation of some cancers and in the regulation of gene expression.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tomas Lindahl</span> Swedish-British scientist

Tomas Robert Lindahl FRS FMedSci is a Swedish-British scientist specialising in cancer research. In 2015, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry jointly with American chemist Paul L. Modrich and Turkish chemist Aziz Sancar for mechanistic studies of DNA repair.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cell potency</span> Ability of a cell to differentiate into other cell types

Cell potency is a cell's ability to differentiate into other cell types. The more cell types a cell can differentiate into, the greater its potency. Potency is also described as the gene activation potential within a cell, which like a continuum, begins with totipotency to designate a cell with the most differentiation potential, pluripotency, multipotency, oligopotency, and finally unipotency.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ming-Ming Zhou</span>

Ming-Ming Zhou is an American scientist whose specification is structural and chemical biology, NMR spectroscopy, and drug design. He is the Dr. Harold and Golden Lamport Professor and Chairman of the Department of Pharmacological Sciences. He is also the co-director of the Drug Discovery Institute at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and Mount Sinai Health System in New York City, as well as Professor of Sciences. Zhou is an elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edinburgh Cancer Research Centre</span> Medical facility in City of Edinburgh, Scotland, UK

The Edinburgh Cancer Research Centre (ECRC), also known as the University of Edinburgh Cancer Research Centre, is a center for basic, translational and clinical cancer research located in Edinburgh, Scotland. ECRC constitutes a part of the Institute of Genetics & Molecular Medicine (IGMM) and is positioned in direct proximity of the Western General Hospital, where most of its clinical activities take place.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Amanda Fisher</span> British cell biologist

Dame Amanda Gay Fisher is a British cell biologist and Director of the Medical Research Council (MRC) London Institute of Medical Sciences at the Hammersmith Hospital campus of Imperial College London, where she is also a Professor leading the Institute of Clinical Sciences. She has made contributions to multiple areas of cell biology, including determining the function of several genes in HIV and describing the importance of a gene's location within the cell nucleus.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nessa Carey</span> British molecular biologist

Nessa Carey is a British biologist working in the field of molecular biology and biotechnology. She is International Director of the technology transfer organization PraxisUnico and a visiting professor at Imperial College London.

Epigenetics of human development is the study of how epigenetics effects human development.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anne Ferguson-Smith</span> Mammalian developmental geneticist (born 1961)

Anne Carla Ferguson-Smith is a mammalian developmental geneticist. She is the Arthur Balfour Professor of Genetics and Pro-Vice Chancellor for Research and International Partnerships at the University of Cambridge. Formerly head of the Department of Genetics at the University of Cambridge, she is a Fellow of Darwin College, Cambridge and serves as President of the Genetics Society.

Azim Surani is a Kenyan-British developmental biologist who has been Marshall–Walton Professor at the Wellcome Trust/Cancer Research UK Gurdon Institute at the University of Cambridge since 1992, and Director of Germline and Epigenomics Research since 2013.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Caroline Dive</span> Professor of Cancer Pharmacology

Caroline Dive is a British cancer research scientist. Dive is Professor of Cancer Pharmacology at the University of Manchester, Deputy Director of the Cancer Research UK (CRUK) Manchester Institute, Director of the CRUK Manchester Institute Cancer Biomarker Centre and co-director of the CRUK Lung Cancer Centre of Excellence. She is the current President of The European Association for Cancer Research (EACR).

Rebecca Clare Fitzgerald is a British medical researcher who studies cancer evolution to find new ways to detect and prevent cancer, with a particular focus on oesophageal cancer. She is a tenured Professor of Cancer Prevention and is the founding Director at the Early Cancer Institute of the University of Cambridge.

Anindya Dutta is an Indian-born American biochemist and cancer researcher, a Chair of the Department of Genetics at the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Medicine since 2021, who has served as Chair of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics at the University of Virginia School of Medicine in 2011–2021. Dutta's research has focused on the mammalian cell cycle with an emphasis on DNA replication and repair and on noncoding RNAs. He is particularly interested in how de-regulation of these processes promote cancer progression. For his accomplishments he has been elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, received the Ranbaxy Award in Biomedical Sciences, the Outstanding Investigator Award from the American Society for Investigative Pathology, the Distinguished Scientist Award from the University of Virginia and the Mark Brothers Award from the Indiana University School of Medicine.

Folami Ideraabdullah is an American geneticist and assistant professor in the Department of Genetics and the Department of Nutrition at the Gillings School of Global Public Health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Ideraabdullah explores how maternal nutrition and environmental toxin exposure affect development through exploring epigenetic changes to DNA. She has found that maternal Vitamin D deficiencies can cause genome-wide changes in methylation patterns that persist for several generations and impact offspring health. Her international collaboration with the University of Witwatersrand represents the first time that metal levels in the placenta have been investigated in relation to birth outcomes in South Africa.

Victoria Sanz Moreno is a Spanish scientist. She is professor of cancer cell and metastasis biology at The Institute of Cancer Research.

Marisa Bartolomei is an American cell biologist, the Perelman Professor of Cell and Developmental Biology and Co-Director of the Epigenetics Institute at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research considers epigenetic processes including genomic imprinting. She was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2021.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Arney, Kat (2010). "Ada Lovelace day – Professor Amanda Fisher". katarney.wordpress.com. Archived from the original on 16 November 2013.
  2. ↑ Telling tales about science , Women in Science and Engineering Campaign.
  3. ↑ "First Create the Media".
  4. ↑ "interview with Kat Arney". CSICOP. 22 June 2016.
  5. ↑ "Did the Victorians Ruin the World". BBC.
  6. ↑ "Articles by Kat Arney at Science magazine". sciencemag.org. AAAS. 4 December 2012.
  7. ↑ "Articles by Kat Arney at The Guardian". The Guardian . London.
  8. ↑ Arney, Kat (2015). "Epigenetics". New Scientist. 228 (3051): 39. Bibcode:2015NewSc.228...39A. doi:10.1016/S0262-4079(15)31765-6.
  9. ↑ "Articles by Kat Arney at Cancer Research UK". cancerresearchuk.org.
  10. ↑ "Kat Arney". Education in Chemistry . Royal Society of Chemistry . Retrieved 23 January 2018.
  11. ↑ Arney, Katharine Luisa (2002). Epigenetic modification in the mouse zygote and regulation of imprinted genes (PhD thesis). University of Cambridge. OCLC   894595629.
  12. ↑ K. L. Arney; S. Erhardt; R. A. Drewell; M. A. Surani (2001). "Epigenetic reprogramming of the genome—from the germ line to the embryo and back again". The International Journal of Developmental Biology. 45 (3): 533–540. PMID   11417896.
  13. ↑ Arney, Katharine L (2003). "H19 and Igf2 – enhancing the confusion?". Trends in Genetics. 19 (1): 17–23. doi:10.1016/S0168-9525(02)00004-5. PMID   12493244.
  14. ↑ Arney, Katharine L.; Fisher, Amanda G. (2004). "Epigenetic aspects of differentiation". Journal of Cell Science . 117 (19): 4355–4363. doi:10.1242/jcs.01390. PMID   15331660.
  15. ↑ Kat Arney's publications indexed by the Scopus bibliographic database. (subscription required)
  16. ↑ 'I hate pink. It is hugely patronising to think making things pink will get girls into science' Times Educational Supplement .
  17. ↑ speaker profile, NCRI conference
  18. ↑ The lessons that CRUK learned from nomakeupselfies, Third Sector.
  19. ↑ Anon (2016). "Nonfiction Book Review: Herding Hemingway's Cats: Understanding How Our Genes Work by Kat Arney". Publishers Weekly .
  20. ↑ Herding Hemingway's Cats: Understanding How Our Genes Work ISBN   978-1-4729-1004-2
  21. ↑ Kat Arney (20 October 2020). Rebel Cell: Cancer, Evolution, and the New Science of Life's Oldest Betrayal. BenBella Books, Incorporated. ISBN   978-1-950665-51-8.
  22. ↑ "Kat Arney | Author | Education in Chemistry".
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