02-28-2011, 03:28 AM
(02-27-2011, 09:31 PM)BlatzAdict Wrote: can you please provide a brief overview or an explanation in your own words what Epigenetics is? I tried to look through your link but it is confusing >_<
I caught an old episode of Nova, after it started, that showed identical twin women, only one of whom got cancer of a type that scientists had thought needed a genetic susceptibility.
They also showed two mice genetically identical that looked very differently (different colors and one was obese).
This show or some other source discussed a group of very isolated people in northern Finland or someplace like that. They pretty much lived completely on their own because of the isolation. Somebody pored over their records and determined that if a bad famine hit them because of a crop disaster, grandchildren of those starvers, although not in the same families, had a likelihood of something that other grandchildren did not. Sorry for the cloudy memory.
These are examples of epigenetics ("above genetics"), where something can attach to a DNA molecule that will alter the entity and even offspring, although DNA analysis alone will show nothing out of ordinary.
Quote:Once nurture seemed clearly distinct from nature. Now it appears that our diets and lifestyles can change the expression of our genes. How? By influencing a network of chemical switches within our cells collectively known as the epigenome. This new understanding may lead us to potent new medical therapies. Epigenetic cancer therapy, for one, already seems to be yielding promising results.