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Alberto Perez is an Associate Faculty Member who works alongside Richard Lavery in the Structural Biology Faculty. He recently did a TedX talk on epigenetics, which you can see below. Here, he introduces the video.

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At some point or other in our lives, we will be told that we look like our parents, grandparents or another family member. Or perhaps, the other way round – your kids and grandkids will have your smile or your nose. I actually had a different experience: I grew up as a redhead in Spain where red hair is practically unheard of. My parents and my brother have black hair, as did most of the kids at school. So of course I was a confused child and wanted to know if I’d been adopted! This is what initially introduced me to the mysteries of DNA. Happily, I learnt many things that could explain my hair color, and it was this that led me further down the road to start a PhD studying DNA – epigenomics, in particular.

Epigenomics is a study of how certain chemical modifications affect our DNA. The information does not change, but how and where it is used can change. These modifications are pretty standard – they are needed for cell differentiation: all cells have the same DNA, but they need to access different information from it in order to carry out their work. What I find fascinating is that these modifications can also be introduced as a result of the environment around us and the decisions we make in daily life. Things like diet, exercise, smoking, sun exposure, these can all influence epigenetic markers. Furthermore, in some cases, they can be passed on to the next generation.

In my TEDx video below, I take you through three easy stories about what epigenetics is, how it can influence us and, even better, the great promise it holds for future medicine in treating cancers and other genetic diseases.