Living with something that can kill you is not a formula for success, yet some of us do this everyday, although mostly unknowingly. Radon is a radioactive gas with the potential to kill. It can leak into homes primarily through underground basements and prove fatal. Luckily, there are easy steps to check for and mitigate exposure. Learn about the new research being done to “Evict Radon” from our homes. Aaron Goodarzi, PhD, is an assistant professor at University of Calgary’s Arnie Charbonneau Cancer Institute at the Cumming School of Medicine, and currently holds the title of Canada Research Chair for Radiation Exposure Disease. He is a globally recognized researcher in understanding how radiation impacts our DNA to cause genetic damage and ultimately cancer.

Aaron currently leads the ‘Evict Radon’ campaign to test homes across Canada for radon gas, which is the biggest lifetime source of radiation exposure for nearly everyone, and the leading cause of lung cancer in non-smokers being responsible for the premature deaths of many thousands of Canadians each year. He obtained his PhD in biochemistry from University of Calgary in 2005, and trained as a post-doctoral scholar in radiation biology at the Genome Damage and Stability Centre at the University of Sussex (UK) until 2010. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx