[Applause]
so a few years ago I found myself
sitting in a genetic counselors office
helping a researcher diagram this
beautiful little pedigree chart of my
family and the misfortune and misery of
the numerous cancer diagnoses that we
had endured I had cancer and two years
prior if I don’t cry my youngest brother
died from cancer at age 23 and weeks
before my diagnosis my uncle and my
cousin’s little boy were both diagnosed
with cancer I had just had a baby of
course and I worried that I had just
created this new beautiful little life
that would one day have to face the fear
and the pain of a cancer diagnosis of
herself and at the time it seemed
evident that my family had some kind of
genetic condition or a predisposition
for this disease and so I went to see
this genetic counselor in hopes of
gaining some insight understanding some
answers possibly but also I was hoping
that maybe my family’s experience could
contribute to the understanding of this
familial disease pattern and so as this
researcher finished up this lovely
little hand-drawn diagram of my pedigree
chart the genetic counselor came in and
he carefully looked at this chart and he
was really quiet and you know that
moment in the movies where it’s like the
drum roll this is a dramatic moment you
know that something big is about to
happen and so I was really nervous
and I thought okay prepare myself for
this horrible answer and light more life
changes that’s not exactly what happened
the counselor the only words that came
out of his mouth where science can’t
prove that your cancers are related at
this time but make sure to come back
when someone else and your family’s
diagnosed with cancer and we’ll
reevaluate your case okay okay okay I
was stunned I was left in this
counselor’s office with a box of tissues
I was angry I experienced cognitive
dissonance at its finest I did not
believe this scientist that was supposed
to have answers for me didn’t have
answers but I am NOT a geneticist and so
I remember going home that day very
clearly and crying a lot and I did what
I think most of us here do when we have
these big questions and the answers that
we are given are less than sufficient I
fell back on what I knew I fell back on
what I could understand I’m a geographer
I have a background in anthropology and
when my brother had died I dug into the
literature I dug into the research to
understand his disease and I found this
geographic component environmental
pollution exposure that could have
potentially caused his disease and then
his death but in my immediate family
situation I couldn’t draw on what I knew
me my uncle and my cousin’s little boy
each of us had
very different cancers none of which
were brain cancer and in addition to
that we had never lived anywhere near
each other to experience a shared
environmental pollution exposure and so
I had to grapple with the really
difficult idea that I was not seeing a
familial disease pattern I was living
some horrible random chance it did not
sit well with me and so I did what I do
I dug back into the research and I was
heartened when I came across the works
of a doctor Michael Skinner at
Washington State University dr. Skinner
studies how our genes interact with our
environment dr. Skinner and scientists
like him have found that indeed our
genes based off of some environmental
signal can switch on or off so to speak
and under the right conditions
if this exposure occurs before you have
children there is a potential that you
can pass that on through your genes to
your kids and this includes disease let
me give you one Geographic example that
I think will help clarify what I’m
saying here so in 1982 amazing
scientists dr. Lars Olav bigram and a
dr. Marcus Pembrey studied this small
and remote village in Sweden that
through the 19th century was known for
going through severe feast and famine
food conditions now the amazing thing
about this little village in Sweden is
that they kept meticulous records they
were excellent record keepers they even
recorded how much food was available for
families through these times and so what
these two scientists did after they had
acquired their information they tracked
down the descendents which were the
grandchildren of those that live
in this village and they compared the
health and longevity of these grandkids
to the food availability of their
grandparents that lived in this village
through these feast and famine times and
what they found was remarkable it wasn’t
magic but it was remarkable they could
find a direct association a strong
correlation between the amount of food
their grandparents were able to consume
before adolescence specifically
grandparents that experienced more
famine conditions before adolescents
passed down genes that allowed their
grandchildren to live longer healthier
lives
famine longer healthier lives okay
grandparents that feasted that had more
food available to them actually had
grandkids that lived shorter less
healthy lives for me the light bulb had
turned on and we know now that this is
something called epigenetics we know
that we have the ability that our genes
have the ability to switch on and off
based off of environmental exposures and
that is what was being witnessed in this
village for me for my family situation
the light bulb had turned on and I had
to ask myself okay having this new
information even if it was just for me
to cope with the situation if I could
map my ancestors over space and time all
the way down to me I could potentially
deduce an environmental exposure that
has caused my current familial disease
pattern of cancer and this is something
that I’m calling Geographic legacy and
so today I am a PhD
student in medical geography and that is
a real thing not kidding and I take the
datasets of historic environmental data
and I combined that data with family
pedigree data from the Utah population
database housed at the Huntsman Cancer
Research Institute I bring these pieces
of information together and I recreate
Geographic legacies of families in hopes
of finding some association between
these environmental exposures and our
disease outcomes and families and so it
is my hope that Geographic legacies
become commonplace in our medical
research but it is my dream that
Geographic legacies become commonplace
for all of us but for familial disease
research so I know you’re all on the
edge of your seats I want you to know
that I’m cancer-free today thank you
my little girl turned eight just a
couple days ago and she’s healthy and
happy but my uncle who suffers from
multiple myeloma even today he is one of
the longest living survivors of his
cancer and so he is continually being
studied for his longevity and my cousin
who was just a little boy at the time of
his diagnosis is here today in the
audience and he is a teenager now and
he’s healthy as well
[Applause]
so a few years ago I found myself
sitting in a genetic counselors office
helping a researcher diagram this
beautiful little pedigree chart of my
family and the misfortune and misery of
the numerous cancer diagnoses that we
had endured I had cancer and two years
prior if I don’t cry my youngest brother
died from cancer at age 23 and weeks
before my diagnosis my uncle and my
cousin’s little boy were both diagnosed
with cancer I had just had a baby of
course and I worried that I had just
created this new beautiful little life
that would one day have to face the fear
and the pain of a cancer diagnosis of
herself and at the time it seemed
evident that my family had some kind of
genetic condition or a predisposition
for this disease and so I went to see
this genetic counselor in hopes of
gaining some insight understanding some
answers possibly but also I was hoping
that maybe my family’s experience could
contribute to the understanding of this
familial disease pattern and so as this
researcher finished up this lovely
little hand-drawn diagram of my pedigree
chart the genetic counselor came in and
he carefully looked at this chart and he
was really quiet and you know that
moment in the movies where it’s like the
drum roll this is a dramatic moment you
know that something big is about to
happen and so I was really nervous
and I thought okay prepare myself for
this horrible answer and light more life
changes that’s not exactly what happened
the counselor the only words that came
out of his mouth where science can’t
prove that your cancers are related at
this time but make sure to come back
when someone else and your family’s
diagnosed with cancer and we’ll
reevaluate your case okay okay okay I
was stunned I was left in this
counselor’s office with a box of tissues
I was angry I experienced cognitive
dissonance at its finest I did not
believe this scientist that was supposed
to have answers for me didn’t have
answers but I am NOT a geneticist and so
I remember going home that day very
clearly and crying a lot and I did what
I think most of us here do when we have
these big questions and the answers that
we are given are less than sufficient I
fell back on what I knew I fell back on
what I could understand I’m a geographer
I have a background in anthropology and
when my brother had died I dug into the
literature I dug into the research to
understand his disease and I found this
geographic component environmental
pollution exposure that could have
potentially caused his disease and then
his death but in my immediate family
situation I couldn’t draw on what I knew
me my uncle and my cousin’s little boy
each of us had
very different cancers none of which
were brain cancer and in addition to
that we had never lived anywhere near
each other to experience a shared
environmental pollution exposure and so
I had to grapple with the really
difficult idea that I was not seeing a
familial disease pattern I was living
some horrible random chance it did not
sit well with me and so I did what I do
I dug back into the research and I was
heartened when I came across the works
of a doctor Michael Skinner at
Washington State University dr. Skinner
studies how our genes interact with our
environment dr. Skinner and scientists
like him have found that indeed our
genes based off of some environmental
signal can switch on or off so to speak
and under the right conditions
if this exposure occurs before you have
children there is a potential that you
can pass that on through your genes to
your kids and this includes disease let
me give you one Geographic example that
I think will help clarify what I’m
saying here so in 1982 amazing
scientists dr. Lars Olav bigram and a
dr. Marcus Pembrey studied this small
and remote village in Sweden that
through the 19th century was known for
going through severe feast and famine
food conditions now the amazing thing
about this little village in Sweden is
that they kept meticulous records they
were excellent record keepers they even
recorded how much food was available for
families through these times and so what
these two scientists did after they had
acquired their information they tracked
down the descendents which were the
grandchildren of those that live
in this village and they compared the
health and longevity of these grandkids
to the food availability of their
grandparents that lived in this village
through these feast and famine times and
what they found was remarkable it wasn’t
magic but it was remarkable they could
find a direct association a strong
correlation between the amount of food
their grandparents were able to consume
before adolescence specifically
grandparents that experienced more
famine conditions before adolescents
passed down genes that allowed their
grandchildren to live longer healthier
lives
famine longer healthier lives okay
grandparents that feasted that had more
food available to them actually had
grandkids that lived shorter less
healthy lives for me the light bulb had
turned on and we know now that this is
something called epigenetics we know
that we have the ability that our genes
have the ability to switch on and off
based off of environmental exposures and
that is what was being witnessed in this
village for me for my family situation
the light bulb had turned on and I had
to ask myself okay having this new
information even if it was just for me
to cope with the situation if I could
map my ancestors over space and time all
the way down to me I could potentially
deduce an environmental exposure that
has caused my current familial disease
pattern of cancer and this is something
that I’m calling Geographic legacy and
so today I am a PhD
student in medical geography and that is
a real thing not kidding and I take the
datasets of historic environmental data
and I combined that data with family
pedigree data from the Utah population
database housed at the Huntsman Cancer
Research Institute I bring these pieces
of information together and I recreate
Geographic legacies of families in hopes
of finding some association between
these environmental exposures and our
disease outcomes and families and so it
is my hope that Geographic legacies
become commonplace in our medical
research but it is my dream that
Geographic legacies become commonplace
for all of us but for familial disease
research so I know you’re all on the
edge of your seats I want you to know
that I’m cancer-free today thank you
my little girl turned eight just a
couple days ago and she’s healthy and
happy but my uncle who suffers from
multiple myeloma even today he is one of
the longest living survivors of his
cancer and so he is continually being
studied for his longevity and my cousin
who was just a little boy at the time of
his diagnosis is here today in the
audience and he is a teenager now and
he’s healthy as well
[Applause]
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