Animal Genes and Human Health with Vincent Lynch

10/01/24 • 17 min

As a kid, all Vincent Lynch wanted to do was hang out by the river near his home, fishing and crabbing and playing in the muck. School, by contrast, was a bore. Then he discovered biology—and never looked back. Today, as an evolutionary biologist at the University at Buffalo, Lynch studies the genomic history of animals both living and extinct to understand everything from why elephants don’t get cancer to why women go into labor. In this episode of Driven to Discover, Lynch talks to host Tom Dinki about what it means to run a “curiosity-driven” lab, why resurrecting extinct species is a bad idea, and how analyzing animal genes could help humans lead longer, healthier lives.
Credits:
Host: Tom Dinki
Guest: Vincent Lynch
Writer/Producer: Laura Silverman
Production and editing by UB Video Production Group

Coming This Fall: Driven to Discover is taking a break for the summer. We will be back in early September with a whole new slate of UB experts and innovators discussing what sparked their passion for their subject and what makes their research meaningful for the world at large.

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Credits:
Host: Laura Silverman
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Writer/Producer: Laura Silverman
Production and editing by UB Video Production Group

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Production and editing by UB Video Production Group

Driven to Discover - Animal Genes and Human Health with Vincent Lynch

Transcript

Tom Dinki: He may not have had a word for it back then, but Vincent Lynch has been fascinated by biology since childhood.

Vincent Lynch: I grew up along the Hudson River, playing in the swamps, trying to catch fish and crabs, and I was always amazed by how weird and different all the different animals looked.

Tom Dinki: Today, as an associate professor of evolutionary biology at the University at Buffalo, Lynch explores how animals