Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Epigenetics

The real news and future in genetics is not the genome itself, as important as that is. I cringe when I hear biologists say that the majority of DNA is "junk" or "gibberish." It is a sign of our continued arrogance that just because we don't know what this material does it we think it must do "nothing".
In fact, it appears that much of this DNA is probably involved in moderating the expression of the core genome. Turning genes on, turning them off, and modulating the intensity and degree of their expression are all probably what really make each individual unique. This process seems to be highly correlated with environmental factors--toxins, nutrition, etc.--and explains much of the relationship between nature and nurture.
This phenomenon is called "epigenetics" and it is the real science of evolution, development.
Mark my words, folks--epigenetics is the real future of biology and medicine.

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