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 [...]
This past September the European Commission launched the BLUEPRINT project which has been dubbed the European Commission’s largest-ever project with with a €30-million investment in understanding the human epigenome (Nature). BLUEPRINT, which is part of the International Human Epigenome Consortium (IHEC), has chosen to focus on the blood epigenome since blood samples are readily available [...]
Epigenetics is quickly becoming, (if it hasn’t yet already become), the fastest growing area of interest for genomic scientists, (see this video description of how epigentics works and read a review of different methods used to study epigenetics). With the human genome already sequenced, (been there, done that), it is the interplay of one’s genetic [...]
Epigenetics is the study of inherited phenotypic changes caused by mechanisms other than mutations in the underlying DNA sequence. In mammalian cells, most of the chromatin—a complex of DNA, proteins, and histones—exists in a condensed, transcriptionally silent form called heterochromatin. The transcriptionally active form of chromatin is called euchromatin; it exists in a relaxed, less [...]
A nice, basic explanation of how epigenetics works. Tweet This Post
