does anybody here know someone who has
suffered a stroke please raise your hand
quite a few of you and I’m not surprised
with one in six people going to suffer a
stroke in their lifetime 15 million
people will suffer a stroke each year
5.8 million people will die from a
severe stroke the cost of looking after
people who have had a stroke and for the
people that support them is five billion
dollars every year and that’s just in
Australia a stroke will claim a life
every six seconds so by the end of my
talk over a hundred people could have
lost their life to a stroke and stroke
can affect anyone from babies right the
way through to the elderly in fact it’s
the second leading cause of death for
people over the age of 60 this is
Margaret known as Peggy to her friends
she was a mother of two she had six
grandchildren and she worked hard for a
living cleaning houses right up until
she was in her 70s
Peggy suffered a stroke not long after
her 81st birthday a stroke occurs when
the brain cells don’t get enough oxygen
and nutrients they need this to survive
if they’re deprived of their oxygen and
their nutrients these brain cells start
to die and then the tissue deteriorates
initially a stroke can be really hard to
detect in people and that’s because the
brain tissue itself doesn’t have any
pain receptors so someone could be
having a stroke and they may not even
know it
until their brain tissue
to die and they start to display the
symptoms like slurred speech and
paralysis time to treatment for stroke
is critical
the sooner we can treat a stroke the
less of our brain tissue will be
destroyed your brain is a beautiful
complex delicate organ that we don’t yet
fully understand it controls your life
functions it lets you move around but it
is so much more than that it’s your
sense of humor it’s your personality it
makes you unique all your memories are
stored inside your brain it’s what makes
you you
unfortunately for Peggy she suffered a
massive stroke it rendered her unable to
move and she couldn’t communicate
effectively with her family anymore
Peggy would never get to go home but
what if I told you that 80% of strokes
are preventable
just by avoiding the key risk factors
such as smoking high cholesterol poor
diet exercise so does these little
things can make a big difference and
possibly prevent us from having a stroke
but for those people where it’s not
preventable we need to improve how we
diagnose a stroke we need to do that
faster and we need to improve the
current treatments as well which are
quite limited the things that we
currently have in place are clot-busting
drugs that go in and dissolve the clot
or we have clot retrieval methods where
the clot is pulled out of the vessels
allowing the oxygen and nutrients to get
back to the brain tissue these need to
be given within a few hours blood
thinners can be given as well but these
have to be administered within 48 hours
in order for them to be effective so
they’re pretty limited
so how can we improve diagnosis and
treat stroke epigenetics could be the
answer so what is epigenetics well I’m
an epigenetic system and in order for me
to tell you all about the field that I
work in and the mechanisms behind
epigenetics I need a whole new TEDx talk
maybe two or three but I will attempt to
give you a brief introduction so that
you can understand how epigenetics could
one day help us diagnose and treat
stroke so I’ll try and give a brief
brief overview and we need to start by
looking at ourselves in your body you
have around just over 200 different cell
types and they’re all different all of
these cells or roughly all of these
cells they’ll get together and they’ll
make different tissues in your body
these tissues will make your organs and
the organs will effectively make you
there is an estimated 30 to 40 trillion
cells that make up your body that’s more
than all of the estimated stars in our
galaxy so we need to have a look at
these cells in a little bit more detail
to understand what epigenetics is inside
the majority of ourselves we have a
nucleus and in that nucleus we have DNA
in this DNA we have genes and this
genetic material is found in all of
those cells that have a nucleus so it’s
the same in all the cell types that we
have this DNA with the genes can be
copied to form a messenger RNA this
messenger RNA will then leave the cell’s
nucleus and go into the cytoplasm and
here it will be decoded to form proteins
these proteins are really important they
will dictate what the cell type will be
they will tell that cell what its
function or its role is going to be in
your body these proteins are what are
allow
Insel to send an electrical signal and
it’s what allows a muscle cell to
contract so you can move around so why
is it that we have 200 well over 200
different types of cells in our body if
all of the genetic material is the same
if all those cells have got the same DNA
and the same genes how can they be
different the reason behind this is
because not all of these genes are
turned on in all of the cells they’re
switched on and they’re switched off
during development the mechanism behind
this you’ve probably guessed it it’s
epigenetics epigenetics is very similar
to those traffic control people that we
see on the road they do a great job of
regulating the flow of traffic on the
road epigenetics is very similar it
regulates the flow and the production of
protein in our cells and it does this
using a similar mechanism to what those
traffic control people use they use stop
and go signposts so they stop and go
signposts can be placed onto the DNA
onto those gears and they will
effectively say to that bit of DNA to be
turned on or turned off here’s just an
example for you so here we have a bit of
DNA potentially a gene and it has go
fine posts along it these go signpost
these epigenetic signposts will open up
the DNA and allow for that messenger RNA
to be produced and potentially our
protein we may have another gene in our
cell that has the stop sign posts on it
and this will have a slightly different
effect it will close off that DNA and it
will stop the RNA or that protein from
eventually being produced so this is the
mechanism behind epigenetics it
effectively turns your genes on and it
turns your genes off and this is just
one form of that mechanism and these
epigenetic
chick signposts they are heritable and
they’re mostly permanent and this is
important too just to give you an
example inside your brain with all your
brain cells we don’t want them to all of
a sudden start producing skin cells for
one thing if we had an itch there it
so these signposts they’re mostly
permanent but not completely they can
actually change it accordance with how
we live our lives our lifestyle our life
experiences can change our epigenetics
and this is really important too because
if these cells signposts get mixed up
and the cell gets confused and it starts
to produce the wrong protein this can be
very bad not just for the cell but for
our bodies as well in fact it can lead
to disease diseases like stroke but if
these epigenetic signposts are
reversible and they can be changed why
can’t we use that to treat disease
current methods that are used to treat
and diagnose stroke are not effective
particularly the diagnosis current ways
that stroke is diagnosed is with
physical examination so people present
with slurred speech and paralysis or we
can put them into a really expensive MRI
machine to image their brain and for
this it’s basically showing you the
damage that has been done so when we
look at these brain images and we see
that there’s an area that’s been
affected by a stroke it’s getting too
late we need to diagnose the stroke
earlier to try and prevent the damage
that will occur from the stroke let’s go
back to Peggy Peggy had a massive bleed
on the brain she was paralyzed all down
her left side she couldn’t speak
she’s lost her gag reflex she couldn’t
swallow she had
to be fed through a tube PEGI stroke was
diagnosed too late because i getting
access to machines like these can take
too long the current treatments are
ineffective so epigenetics might be able
to help us here when someone has a
stroke epigenetic changes occur in the
brain tissue but also in the blood we
could potentially take a sample of
someone’s blood and analyze it for these
epigenetic changes that occur how simple
would that be and how quick would that
be to diagnose a stroke it would have
other advantages as well for people that
live in rural and remote countries for
example they may not have access to a
hospital left alone and expensive
imaging machine so using these
epigenetic markers in the blood we can
potentially create bio markers
epigenetic blood biomarkers to diagnose
stroke quicker but how else can ever
genetics help to potentially treat a
stroke well there’s epigenetic signposts
that we had a look earlier we could use
those we could use these epigenetic
signposts to turn genes on we could
stimulate the formation of new blood
vessels to get the supply of oxygen and
nutrients back to the brain tissue this
would aid in tissue repair and tissue
recovery we could use those epigenetic
signposts to stimulate new brain cells
to form this is known as neurogenesis we
could increase the brain’s plasticity
allowing it to be able to recover more
effectively when it is damaged so
epigenetics can play a key role and it
already is in cancer patients epigenetic
treatments are already being used with
refinement and targeting there’s no
reason why they cannot be applied to
diseases such as stroke in the future
we’re not there yet
there’s still a lot we don’t understand
about epigenetics but every day we’re
getting closer to this breakthrough that
we could have in treating and diagnosing
a stroke Peggy she died six months after
she was diagnosed as having a stroke and
for those six months her family was left
wondering how much did she know what was
going on was she even aware was Peggy
still there no one was quite sure Peggy
was my grandmother I was 18 when she
passed away and the image of seeing her
lying in a hospital bed and the feeling
of helplessness and fear for her has
stayed with me and it’s driven me down a
career of research and it’s given me the
passion to pursue this career to try and
make a difference with using epigenetics
an extremely powerful tool that maybe
one day we could help to diagnose a
stroke faster and get that person the
treatment they need quicker so using
those epigenetic biomarkers to detect a
stroke and then potentially using
epigenetics to more effectively treat a
stroke so that we can help people more
people like my grandmother thank you very much
suffered a stroke please raise your hand
quite a few of you and I’m not surprised
with one in six people going to suffer a
stroke in their lifetime 15 million
people will suffer a stroke each year
5.8 million people will die from a
severe stroke the cost of looking after
people who have had a stroke and for the
people that support them is five billion
dollars every year and that’s just in
Australia a stroke will claim a life
every six seconds so by the end of my
talk over a hundred people could have
lost their life to a stroke and stroke
can affect anyone from babies right the
way through to the elderly in fact it’s
the second leading cause of death for
people over the age of 60 this is
Margaret known as Peggy to her friends
she was a mother of two she had six
grandchildren and she worked hard for a
living cleaning houses right up until
she was in her 70s
Peggy suffered a stroke not long after
her 81st birthday a stroke occurs when
the brain cells don’t get enough oxygen
and nutrients they need this to survive
if they’re deprived of their oxygen and
their nutrients these brain cells start
to die and then the tissue deteriorates
initially a stroke can be really hard to
detect in people and that’s because the
brain tissue itself doesn’t have any
pain receptors so someone could be
having a stroke and they may not even
know it
until their brain tissue
to die and they start to display the
symptoms like slurred speech and
paralysis time to treatment for stroke
is critical
the sooner we can treat a stroke the
less of our brain tissue will be
destroyed your brain is a beautiful
complex delicate organ that we don’t yet
fully understand it controls your life
functions it lets you move around but it
is so much more than that it’s your
sense of humor it’s your personality it
makes you unique all your memories are
stored inside your brain it’s what makes
you you
unfortunately for Peggy she suffered a
massive stroke it rendered her unable to
move and she couldn’t communicate
effectively with her family anymore
Peggy would never get to go home but
what if I told you that 80% of strokes
are preventable
just by avoiding the key risk factors
such as smoking high cholesterol poor
diet exercise so does these little
things can make a big difference and
possibly prevent us from having a stroke
but for those people where it’s not
preventable we need to improve how we
diagnose a stroke we need to do that
faster and we need to improve the
current treatments as well which are
quite limited the things that we
currently have in place are clot-busting
drugs that go in and dissolve the clot
or we have clot retrieval methods where
the clot is pulled out of the vessels
allowing the oxygen and nutrients to get
back to the brain tissue these need to
be given within a few hours blood
thinners can be given as well but these
have to be administered within 48 hours
in order for them to be effective so
they’re pretty limited
so how can we improve diagnosis and
treat stroke epigenetics could be the
answer so what is epigenetics well I’m
an epigenetic system and in order for me
to tell you all about the field that I
work in and the mechanisms behind
epigenetics I need a whole new TEDx talk
maybe two or three but I will attempt to
give you a brief introduction so that
you can understand how epigenetics could
one day help us diagnose and treat
stroke so I’ll try and give a brief
brief overview and we need to start by
looking at ourselves in your body you
have around just over 200 different cell
types and they’re all different all of
these cells or roughly all of these
cells they’ll get together and they’ll
make different tissues in your body
these tissues will make your organs and
the organs will effectively make you
there is an estimated 30 to 40 trillion
cells that make up your body that’s more
than all of the estimated stars in our
galaxy so we need to have a look at
these cells in a little bit more detail
to understand what epigenetics is inside
the majority of ourselves we have a
nucleus and in that nucleus we have DNA
in this DNA we have genes and this
genetic material is found in all of
those cells that have a nucleus so it’s
the same in all the cell types that we
have this DNA with the genes can be
copied to form a messenger RNA this
messenger RNA will then leave the cell’s
nucleus and go into the cytoplasm and
here it will be decoded to form proteins
these proteins are really important they
will dictate what the cell type will be
they will tell that cell what its
function or its role is going to be in
your body these proteins are what are
allow
Insel to send an electrical signal and
it’s what allows a muscle cell to
contract so you can move around so why
is it that we have 200 well over 200
different types of cells in our body if
all of the genetic material is the same
if all those cells have got the same DNA
and the same genes how can they be
different the reason behind this is
because not all of these genes are
turned on in all of the cells they’re
switched on and they’re switched off
during development the mechanism behind
this you’ve probably guessed it it’s
epigenetics epigenetics is very similar
to those traffic control people that we
see on the road they do a great job of
regulating the flow of traffic on the
road epigenetics is very similar it
regulates the flow and the production of
protein in our cells and it does this
using a similar mechanism to what those
traffic control people use they use stop
and go signposts so they stop and go
signposts can be placed onto the DNA
onto those gears and they will
effectively say to that bit of DNA to be
turned on or turned off here’s just an
example for you so here we have a bit of
DNA potentially a gene and it has go
fine posts along it these go signpost
these epigenetic signposts will open up
the DNA and allow for that messenger RNA
to be produced and potentially our
protein we may have another gene in our
cell that has the stop sign posts on it
and this will have a slightly different
effect it will close off that DNA and it
will stop the RNA or that protein from
eventually being produced so this is the
mechanism behind epigenetics it
effectively turns your genes on and it
turns your genes off and this is just
one form of that mechanism and these
epigenetic
chick signposts they are heritable and
they’re mostly permanent and this is
important too just to give you an
example inside your brain with all your
brain cells we don’t want them to all of
a sudden start producing skin cells for
one thing if we had an itch there it
so these signposts they’re mostly
permanent but not completely they can
actually change it accordance with how
we live our lives our lifestyle our life
experiences can change our epigenetics
and this is really important too because
if these cells signposts get mixed up
and the cell gets confused and it starts
to produce the wrong protein this can be
very bad not just for the cell but for
our bodies as well in fact it can lead
to disease diseases like stroke but if
these epigenetic signposts are
reversible and they can be changed why
can’t we use that to treat disease
current methods that are used to treat
and diagnose stroke are not effective
particularly the diagnosis current ways
that stroke is diagnosed is with
physical examination so people present
with slurred speech and paralysis or we
can put them into a really expensive MRI
machine to image their brain and for
this it’s basically showing you the
damage that has been done so when we
look at these brain images and we see
that there’s an area that’s been
affected by a stroke it’s getting too
late we need to diagnose the stroke
earlier to try and prevent the damage
that will occur from the stroke let’s go
back to Peggy Peggy had a massive bleed
on the brain she was paralyzed all down
her left side she couldn’t speak
she’s lost her gag reflex she couldn’t
swallow she had
to be fed through a tube PEGI stroke was
diagnosed too late because i getting
access to machines like these can take
too long the current treatments are
ineffective so epigenetics might be able
to help us here when someone has a
stroke epigenetic changes occur in the
brain tissue but also in the blood we
could potentially take a sample of
someone’s blood and analyze it for these
epigenetic changes that occur how simple
would that be and how quick would that
be to diagnose a stroke it would have
other advantages as well for people that
live in rural and remote countries for
example they may not have access to a
hospital left alone and expensive
imaging machine so using these
epigenetic markers in the blood we can
potentially create bio markers
epigenetic blood biomarkers to diagnose
stroke quicker but how else can ever
genetics help to potentially treat a
stroke well there’s epigenetic signposts
that we had a look earlier we could use
those we could use these epigenetic
signposts to turn genes on we could
stimulate the formation of new blood
vessels to get the supply of oxygen and
nutrients back to the brain tissue this
would aid in tissue repair and tissue
recovery we could use those epigenetic
signposts to stimulate new brain cells
to form this is known as neurogenesis we
could increase the brain’s plasticity
allowing it to be able to recover more
effectively when it is damaged so
epigenetics can play a key role and it
already is in cancer patients epigenetic
treatments are already being used with
refinement and targeting there’s no
reason why they cannot be applied to
diseases such as stroke in the future
we’re not there yet
there’s still a lot we don’t understand
about epigenetics but every day we’re
getting closer to this breakthrough that
we could have in treating and diagnosing
a stroke Peggy she died six months after
she was diagnosed as having a stroke and
for those six months her family was left
wondering how much did she know what was
going on was she even aware was Peggy
still there no one was quite sure Peggy
was my grandmother I was 18 when she
passed away and the image of seeing her
lying in a hospital bed and the feeling
of helplessness and fear for her has
stayed with me and it’s driven me down a
career of research and it’s given me the
passion to pursue this career to try and
make a difference with using epigenetics
an extremely powerful tool that maybe
one day we could help to diagnose a
stroke faster and get that person the
treatment they need quicker so using
those epigenetic biomarkers to detect a
stroke and then potentially using
epigenetics to more effectively treat a
stroke so that we can help people more
people like my grandmother thank you very much
Please follow and like us: