Epigenetics at Work Saturday, September 12, 2015 2:30-4:30 pm Past Event Watch the video » Jean-Baptiste Lamarck might today say, echoing the words of Mark Twain, “The report of my death was an exaggeration.” Lamarck’s theory of the inheritance of acquired characteristics, once derided as “soft inheritance,” has been revived through the field of epigenetics: the study of alterations in gene expression or phenotype caused by mechanisms other than primary alterations in nucleotide sequence, and through transgenerational epigenetics, the study of the inheritability of such effects. How does this recast the “nature versus nurture” debate in the language of multifactorial inheritance, epistatic interaction, and transcriptomics? How might the manifestation of human behaviors, physical traits, and diseases be seen, perforce, with new eyes? Join the discussion in our Forums! » Participants: Frances Champagne Associate Professorof Psychology, Columbia University Frances A. Champagne Ph.D. is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at Columbia University. Dr. Champagne’s main research interest concerns how genetic and environmental factors interact to shape the brain and behavior through epigenetic changes in gene expression. Studies in rodents suggest that the quality of maternal care received in infancy can lead… read more » Zachary Kaminsky Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine Zachary Kaminsky is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and jointly appointed in the Department of Mental Health in the Bloomberg School of Public Health. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Toronto where he studied psychiatric epigenetics and helped to… read more » Fei Li Assistant Professor of Biology, New York University Fei Li is an Assistant Professor of Biology at New York University. He received his Ph.D. in Molecular Genetics from the University of Texas at Austin. He then conducted his postdoctoral research at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas and University of California at Berkeley. He has been with the Department of Biology… read more » Jessica Tyler Professor, Department of Epigenetics and Molecular Carcinogenesis, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center Jessica Tyler was born in England in 1969. After graduating from the University of Sheffield with a Bachelors degree and Hans Krebs prize in Biochemistry, she performed her PhD studies at the MRC Virology Unit in Glasgow, Scotland. During her postdoctoral studies at the University of California San Diego identified the key factors that package… read more »
Frances Champagne Associate Professorof Psychology, Columbia University Frances A. Champagne Ph.D. is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at Columbia University. Dr. Champagne’s main research interest concerns how genetic and environmental factors interact to shape the brain and behavior through epigenetic changes in gene expression. Studies in rodents suggest that the quality of maternal care received in infancy can lead… read more »
Zachary Kaminsky Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine Zachary Kaminsky is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and jointly appointed in the Department of Mental Health in the Bloomberg School of Public Health. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Toronto where he studied psychiatric epigenetics and helped to… read more »
Fei Li Assistant Professor of Biology, New York University Fei Li is an Assistant Professor of Biology at New York University. He received his Ph.D. in Molecular Genetics from the University of Texas at Austin. He then conducted his postdoctoral research at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas and University of California at Berkeley. He has been with the Department of Biology… read more »
Jessica Tyler Professor, Department of Epigenetics and Molecular Carcinogenesis, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center Jessica Tyler was born in England in 1969. After graduating from the University of Sheffield with a Bachelors degree and Hans Krebs prize in Biochemistry, she performed her PhD studies at the MRC Virology Unit in Glasgow, Scotland. During her postdoctoral studies at the University of California San Diego identified the key factors that package… read more »
My genetics professor, Theodosius Dobzhansky up at Columbia, once told the class that he had studied Mendel’s data on the segregation of pea traits, and oftentimes the data did not support the theory. He said he was always troubled by this. The subject of the roundtable today would have been of great interest to him. His question can now be investigated with the tools of epigenetics. Reply