Career inspirations: Chris Ponting, computational biologist

MRC talks

Professor Chris Ponting, computational biologist, is interviewed by Isabel Harding. Chris gave up biology at the age of 16 to focus on physics. But after finishing his Masters, he changed his mind and decided to follow his gut instinct – going back into biology via a degree in biophysics. He then specialised in bioinformatics and genomics. Chris and his team are looking at ways to improve human health, and find new ways to treat disease, by looking at how single letter changes in our DNA affect our disease risk. At the intersection between population scale and molecular data, Chris leads a fellow’s programme, training people with PhDs in physics, maths, statistics and engineering, to work on biological puzzles. In this episode, he explains how by bringing people together with different skills and perspectives, he hopes to change biology and medicine for the better – while also enriching people’s careers. View the transcript: https://mrc.io/2RWanFO Producer: Isabel Harding Presenter: Debs Barber Editor: Hasina Sacranie Music credits: "Clean Soul" and "Brittle Rille" Kevin MacLeod. Licensed under CC BY 4.0