The Epigenetics Revolution: How Modern Biology is Rewriting Our Understanding of Genetics, Disease and Inheritance

Product Information

Grisemer argues for a relative significance approach in weighing the role of these novel mechanisms against those based on genetic inheritance only. The second chapter in this section, develops this a similar argument but in a somewhat different direction. Although I did find this book difficult at times, especially the technical scientific language, Nessa Carey takes great care to explain things in a way that everyone can understand. The pattern of modifications is referred to as a histone code and is extraordinarily difficult to read.

And it rightly hogged the limelight when, just over a decade ago, the human genome project delivered the complete sequence of three billion base pairs. More suggestive evidence comes from a vast, unwitting and cruel experiment played out in the second world war. In both chapters, the focus is on the phenotype of the gene and epigenetics is used in the sense in which it is used in molecular biology, referring to processes that influence heritable variation in gene expression without DNA sequence variation.The final chapter elegantly draws together the biological principles, historical events, and translational examples that were given throughout the book. We follow Hall (1990) or Salazar-Ciudad and Jernvall (2005) in defining epigenetics as the study of the epigenotype, which is the study of the properties of the pathways and processes that link the genotype and phenotype[bh1]. It’s the fastest moving field in modern biology, yet very little has been written on this for a general readership. Photograph: MICHAEL KOOREN/REUTERS Nectar points … bees have phenomenal memories for such small creatures.

Without doubt this is a fascinating subject, and Carey provides plenty of examples of how epigenetics effects our development, our diseases and the way we inherit characteristics. The concept of epigenetics appeals to me as it's an alternative to the fatalistic argument in the nature/nurture debate that our potential is predetermined by our inherited package.Genes don't just issue instructions: they respond to messages coming from other genes, from hormones and from nutritional cues and learning. This had a huge effect on babies born at the time, and the effects of poor nutrition on the foetus seem to have persisted through subsequent generations. It defines an area of study and a level of processes that creates a coherent understanding of the emergent (? The next chapter, by Sue Herring continues the skeletal theme at later developmental stages and a higher phenomenological level and deals with the epigenetic role of mechanical and particularly muscle bone interactions in skeletal development and the implications of these mechanisms for interpreting skeletal morphology in evolutionary contexts.

It is comprehensive in its coverage, generally well written and introduces basic information and concepts as they are required, rather than having a tedious ‘genetics 101’ chapter early on in the book, a feature of popular science books that often leads me to abandon them prematurely. I found this book so interesting because it made me think about genetics in a completely new way, as something changeable and constantly developing, as opposed to the rigid structure I had thought of before.Não entendi tudo, mas o pouco que entendi foi muito interessante, tanto que li o livro em dois dias.

But this book, subtitled: "How modern biology is rewriting our understanding of genetics, disease and inheritance", is an attempt to put matters straight. In 1944, during the last months of the war, a Nazi blockade followed by an exceedingly harsh winter led to mass starvation in Holland.Histone modifications: More than fifty different epigenetic histone modifications have been identified. For some reason so many books on human biology concentrate on emotions and morality and other aspects on the edge of brain science - it was great to find a book that really took us back to basics, but in a new way.