World experts from the fields of social, biological and medical science will today (Monday 25 June 2012) gather in Edinburgh to discuss how they can cooperate to improve our understanding of the way behaviours and life experiences can influence how our genetic inheritance is expressed (epigenetics). This collaboration will also help contribute to understanding the implications epigenetic changes have for such key social policy issues as parenting, poverty, obesity and health.
The symposium is organised by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) in collaboration with the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) and the ESRC Genomics Policy and Research Forum, and hosted at Edinburgh’s City Chambers. Entitled Social science and epigenetics: opportunities and challenges, the symposium will seek to examine how multidisciplinary research into epigenetics – the science of the lasting marks that modify the expression of the genes encoded in our DNA – might help provide answers to societal concerns including why deprivation has such a marked impact on child development and on health outcomes.
