The lab is now officially started at MSU. The future lab space and office is currently still undergoing remodeling and at the moment I am working out of Dr. Doug Schemske’s former lab space. Lot of history here and I am happy to have joined a wonderful group of colleagues and a vibrant plant biology community. date: 2018-01-08T16:11:22-05:00

Epigenomics is different than epigenetics and it’s not simply a matter of scale. As I explained in my previous post, epigenetics, like genetics, is concerned with matters of inheritance. In contrast, epigenomics is the study of those factors that form chromatin, regardless of whether they are inherited. Chromatin roughly refers to those factors that interact with DNA and determine how it is “packaged” into its overall structure and it includes things like DNA methylation, histones, histone modifications, and non-coding RNAs.

Epigenetics is confusing. It’s one of those scientific concepts, like quantum mechanics or “survival of the fittest”, that are often misunderstood and misapplied. How widespread this confusion is, is made evident by the publication of entire papers dedicated just to clarifying the term [1]. This is problematic not only scientifically, but also socially, as “epigenetics” is now even being used in marketing; typically to push the latest health scam. Hopefully this post can shed a little light on just what epigenetics is.