The study of epigenetic variability in cells and tissues could someday help diagnose diseases more precisely and provide more targeted treatments for chronic ailments. Details, summarized by Brown University researchers and others, are published online in the latest edition of PLoS Genetics.

For years, genetics have been considered the one and only way biological traits could be passed down through generations of organisms.

Plant researchers from McGill University and the University of California, Berkeley, have announced a major breakthrough in a developmental process called epigenetics. They have demonstrated for the first time the reversal of what is called epigenetic silencing in plants.

Hereditary information flows from parents to offspring not just through DNA but also through the millions of proteins and other molecules that cling to it. These modifications of DNA, known as "epigenetic marks," act both as a switch and a dial – they can determine which genes should be turned on or off, and how much message an "on" gene should produce.

A study initiated by researchers at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health and the Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands suggests that prenatal exposure to famine can lead to epigenetic changes that may affect a person's health into midlife.

Scientists from the Structural Genomics Consortium (SGC) have determined the 3D structure of a key protein component involved in enabling "epigenetic code" to be copied accurately from cell to cell.

Researchers at Johns Hopkins have found that epigenetic marks on DNA-chemical marks other than the DNA sequence-do indeed change over a person's lifetime, and that the degree of change is similar among family members.

Enzymes regulating genetic expression can be just as important as the genome itself, increasing evidence shows. The expanding field of epigenetics focuses on the multiple influences on DNA and surrounding molecules that determine whether genes are turned on or off during development and disease processes.

The Norris Foundation gift for Epigenome Center strengthens the university’s leadership in an emerging field of cancer research.