Institute of Advanced Studies

Epigenetics Explained

by Emma Whitelaw, NHMRC Australia Fellow at the Queensland Institute of Medical Research

Tremendous progress has been made in our understanding of genetics over the last century.

This lecture will discuss the groundbreaking ideas of Mendel and Darwin, Watson and Crick’s search for the molecular basis of genetics and the recent sequencing of the human genome.

The challenge now is to understand how the DNA sequence shapes our physical appearance. Phenotype results from the interaction between genotype and environment. However, in laboratory animals where genetic variability is reduced (by using inbred strains) and environmental influences are standardised, random variation in biological traits is still observed. This has been termed “intangible variation” or “developmental noise”. Up to 80% of phenotypic variability in mouse body weight has been found to be caused by a component other than genotype or environment (Gartner, 1990). Although it is thought that this variability is established in early development, its origin is unknown. We propose that the molecular basis of developmental noise lies in the epigenetic state of the genome.

Epigenetics is the study of heritable changes in gene expression that occur without a change in DNA sequence. The field of epigenetics, introduced by Waddington in the 1940s, is undergoing a renaissance. Recent advances in this discipline will be discussed in this lecture.

About Emma Whitelaw
Emma Whitelaw is an NHMRC Australia Fellow at the Queensland Institute of Medical Research. After completing her undergraduate degree at the Australian National University, she obtained a D.Phil at the University of Oxford and remained working in London and Oxford for the next fifteen years, moving back to Australia in 1991. She was offered a Senior Lectureship at the University of Sydney and carried out both teaching and research. She has focused her research on eukaryotic transcription using the mouse as a model organism. Her most notable research achievements are in the area of epigenetics. In particular, her studies on the transgenerational inheritance of epigenetic marks have stimulated a great deal of interest from the wider scientific community. In 2008 she was awarded an Australia Fellowship, the most prestigious fellowship in medical research in Australia.

This lecture is part of the Epigenetics and Human Health Symposium being held on Friday, 21 August 2009 at the University Club, UWA. For more information, or to register, visit: http://www.ias.uwa.edu.au/conf/epigenetics