The Changing Concept of Epigenetics

February 9, 2021 Jeremiah Hendren

The Changing Concept of Epigenetics

Jablonka, Eva, and Marion J. Lamb
Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 981, no. 1 (2002): 82-96
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1749-6632.2002.tb04913.x

Epigenetics is not a new discipline. It was born in the early 1940s, when Conrad Waddington first defined and began discussing it, but only recently has it begun to be recognized as a distinct branch of biology. Now, in the wake of the Human Genome Project, it is at a critical crystallization stage. The way that it is defined, the boundaries that are drawn, and the language that is used will have long-lasting effects on future research and on the place of epigenetics in biological thinking. In what follows we will first look at how the definitions of epigenetics have changed during the past half century and at the position epigenetics occupies in relation to genetics and development. We will then consider the practical importance of epigenetics in medicine, agriculture, and ecology and, finally, look at the implications that recent work in epigenetics has for the way we should think about heredity and evolution.

Eva Jablonka & Marion J. Lamb

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