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Dr. Ann Aerts MD, Head of the Novartis Foundation and Member of the US National Academies of Medicine Commission on Healthy Longevity.


Dr. Ann Aerts, M.D. is Head of the Novartis Foundation, an organization committed to transforming the health of low-income populations, by leveraging the power of data, digital technology and artificial intelligence (AI) to re-imagine health and care around the world.

Dr. Aerts holds a Degree in Medicine, a Masters in Public Health from the University of Leuven, Belgium, and a Degree in Tropical Medicine from the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp, Belgium.

Analysis reveals genetic control elements that are linked to hundreds of human traits.

Twenty years ago this month, the first draft of the human genome was publicly released. One of the major surprises that came from that project was the revelation that only 1.5 percent of the human genome consists of protein-coding genes.

Over the past two decades, it has become apparent that those noncoding stretches of DNA, originally thought to be “junk DNA,” play critical roles in development and gene regulation. In a new study published on February 32021, a team of researchers from MIT has published the most comprehensive map yet of this noncoding DNA.

“A famous neurologist Phil Kennedy made global headlines in the late 1990s for implanting wire electrodes in the brain of a ‘locked-in patient’ to control a computer cursor with their mind. Compared to Alexander Graham Bell in The Washington Post, Kennedy became known as ‘The Father of the Cyborgs’. Travelling to South America in 2014, he made further headlines when tiny electrodes were implanted inside his brain in order to continue his research. This film examines the ethical quandaries of self-experimentation and a future where technology and human brains combine.”


Screen Ireland/Fís Éireann is the development agency for the Irish Film Industry investing in talent, creativity and enterprise.