Important Science Show

[Doug G.]

Steve and Company,

For anyone having any interest at all in the science of human genetics, I would like to point your attention to this week's Nova episode on PBS, entitled "The Ghost in Your Genes". The subject is the emerging science of epigenetics, which is basically the system controlling which of your genes is being expressed or suppressed at any given time, a system that scientists were largely oblivious to just a few years ago.

Of course, there had to be some sort of such controlling system. Cells in your heart, or brain, or skin all have the same genetic code, and yet there is obviously something executing the commands written in those genes to cause each type of cell to turn out so very differently. To borrow a (somewhat strained) metaphor used in the show, if your genes are the computer hardware, then the epigenome is the software running on that hardware.

But the really interesting bit turns out to be what can affect and change that software. Scientists are discovering that epigenomic information gets passed from generation to generation to generation. The cells in your body can show effects of environmental events experienced by your grandparents. It has been demonstrated, for instance, in an isolated community in Scandinavia, that men who had experienced famine in their late childhood had male grandchildren who years later were four times as likely to live to an advanced age than others in their community. Wow! In light of our discussions of intermittent fasting, a shiver ran down my back when I heard this.

Anyway, I feel that the investigation of epigenetics will be the foundation of a whole new realm of biological discovery, akin to the discovery of genetics itself. If you have any passing interest in the field, you owe it to yourself to watch this show. So many of these science shows are just high tech porn of a kind, nifty eye candy but not really talking about anything earth-shattering. I feel this is very different. To me, this feels as it might been like to have been around a bunch of physicists back when they were first playing around with those funny charged particles and glowing rocks, and realizing that something new and strange, vital to the future, and perhaps just a bit frightening would eventually fall out of it. Definitely something to follow.

Doug G.

[marylahree]

Doug, thanks for the post. I have more than a passing interest, as I have a rare disease that is autoimmune in nature. I am the only one out of a family of eleven, (my parents included), who has the disease - and I am grateful no one else has it, of course. But neither do any extended relatives have the disease, and my mother was also from a large family, with me taking more of her physical characteristics than those of my father. I realize that does not have to mean anything where genetics concerns the passing of diseases. Further, this is probably, in part, a developed disease, yet I had to have had a predisposition towards developing it, and my docs tell me that stress is/ was a "trigger".

again, thanks for the post.

Mary

[Doug G.]

Do catch the show if you can then. They speak a great deal about the effects of stress, and how it can completely modify the expression of one's genes via the epigenome, and even those of our descendants.

Doug G.

(Aside: I was going to suggest that people might be able to catch the show via iTunes, but for some reason, PBS in their wisdom, is charging $8 bucks a pop for Nova episodes. This when the going rate for a standard television show is only $2. So much for Public television. Of course, it is academic at this point, as the show in question isn't even available, even at the exorbitant price.)

[Steven Barnes]

Sounds fascinating. I'll try to catch it.

[Doug G.]

It may have cycled to the next episode on your local stations. If you like, I could arrange to get you a copy.

Doug G.

[marylahree]

Doug, I found a great deal of information about this subject on the internet. Amazing! I learned that epigenome is a layer of biochemical reactions that turn genes on and off. Presently there is a drug used for leukemia patients that reactivates tumor suppressing genes. It is not without terrible risks of side effects but then, leukemia certainly is no picnic either. Cancer treatments for now, perhaps the disease I have some day. One can hope.