What's in Your Genes?

 

 

Image source (modified):
Jane Qiu, « Epigenetics: Unfinished symphony »,
Nature 441, p. 143-145 
(May 11, 2006) [doi:10.1038/441143a]

The way nature works is often a mystery and our understanding limited. It was only in 1953 that Francis Crick et al developed the first model of DNA structure, the double helix.

The conventional view of inheritance is that DNA carries all the heritable information and that nothing individuals do in their lifetime will be passed on to their children.

Today biology stands on the brink of a shift in the understanding of inheritance. The discovery of epigenetics – hidden influences upon the genes – could affect every aspect of our lives.

“At the heart of this new field is a simple but contentious idea – that genes have a 'memory'. That the lives of your grandparents – the air they breathed, the food they ate, even the things they saw – can directly affect you, decades later, despite your never experiencing these things yourself. And what you do in your lifetime could in turn affect your grandchildren.”

To many scientists, epigenetics amounts to heresy – but it adds a whole new layer to genes beyond DNA. It proposes a control system that turn genes on or off – and suggests that things people experience and the way they experience them can cause heritable effects in humans.

This revolutionary work actually tells us that our ways of thinking, acting and experiencing the world control our DNA and not vice versa. Revolutionary indeed, as this ‘new’ science brings the human being from the realm of slave to that of a free actor in the world.

 

 

October 19, 2007

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