Epigenetics
We are more than our genes
Most people have a certain understanding of genetics, the notion that our genes determine who we are. The exciting field of ’epigenetics’ now demonstrates that we are more than our genes, that our environment, food, lifestyle, and exposure to ‘good’ and ‘bad’ drug effects influences our future health and potentially even that of our offspring. How epigenetics works on the molecular level is still far from being common knowledge and an active field of research.
Epigenetics can favorably be described as a mechanism to switch on and off genes. Every cell in us carries the same genetic information (in the form of DNA molecules, the chromosomes), but different parts of this information needs to be activated in different parts of our body. Failing to retrieve the correct information, or activating the wrong information is a common cause of developmental disorders, cancers and severe outcomes of infectious diseases. The field of epigenetics is concerned with the study of this regulation and investigates how the DNA molecules are packaged differently in various parts of our bodies.
“The study of epigenetics is imperative in order to take the next step towards better cures for diseases and understanding how our lifestyles impacts our health.”
The knowledge of epigenetics has opened a new field of study and offers big opportunities. A popular subject is the understanding of what long-lived epigenetic information passes beyond the individual human being – from one generation to the next. Epigenetic inheritance explains how our bodies’ prior experiences can leave permanent ‘marks’ that influence if we develop diseases or how we respond to infections in the future. Diseases itself, and also the drugs that we take to treat them, can alter our epigenetic information and some of this information may eventually even be inherited to our children. The study of epigenetics is therefore imperative in order to take the next step towards better cures for diseases and understanding how our lifestyles impacts our health.