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EPIGENETICS IN HEALTH AND DISEASE

Decoding epigenetics in health and disease

All our biological information — the instructions that make us who we are — is encoded in our genes. We get half of our genetic information from our father and half from our mother and, together, this information results in us. But our genes don’t act alone — there is another layer of control that regulates when the instructions in genes are acted upon and when they are not. This extra layer is epigenetics.

Here’s how it works: Essentially every cell in the human body — all 37 trillion of them — has the same set of instructions (that is, the same DNA). But not all the instructions are needed in the same cells at the same time. For example, a heart muscle cell only needs to know how to be a heart muscle cell; it does not need to know how to be a skin cell or a bone cell. Heart, skin and bone cells have the same instruction manual but they read from different chapters. Epigenetics helps ensure the right instructions are used at the right time by annotating DNA with special chemical markers.

As a global leader in epigenetics research, VAI is home to a host of scientists who investigate how epigenetics help keep us healthy and, when things go wrong, how it contributes to diseases such as cancer, Parkinson’s disease, dementias, metabolic disorders and more.

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By the numbers

Epigenetics in health and disease

  • 100% of all cancers involve epigenetic changes*
  • 6.5ft or 2 meters, is the length of DNA that is packed into every cell in the body
  • 14 clinical trials of epigenetic cancer drugs launched by the Van Andel Institute–Stand Up To Cancer Epigenetics Dream Team

VAI scientists who study epigenetics

Stephen Baylin, M.D.

Co-leader, Van Andel Institute–Stand Up To Cancer Epigenetics Dream Team

Director’s Scholar and Professor, Department of Epigenetics

Nick Burton, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor, Department of Metabolism and Nutritional Programming

Maternal Effects on Metabolism and Host-Microbe Interactions

Derek Janssens, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor, Department of Epigenetics

Epigenetic Regulation of Hematopoiesis and Leukemia

Dr. Peter Jones, Van Andel Institute

Peter A. Jones, Ph.D., D.Sc. (hon)

President and Chief Scientific Officer

Epigenetic Therapies

Connie Krawczyk, Ph.D.

Associate Professor, Department of Metabolism and Nutritional Programming

Immunology, Epigenetics and Metabolism

Peter W. Laird, Ph.D.

Professor, Department of Epigenetics; Peter and Emajean Cook Endowed Chair in Epigenetics

Cancer Epigenetics

Adelheid (Heidi) Lempradl, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor, Department of Metabolism and Nutritional Programming

Intergenerational Inheritance of Nutritional States

Hong Li, Ph.D.

Professor, Department of Structural Biology

Structural Mechanisms and Therapeutics of RNA Biology

Image of Dr. J. Andrew Pospisilik

J. Andrew Pospisilik, Ph.D.

Chair and Professor, Department of Epigenetics

Epigenetic Origins of Heterogeneity and Disease

Scott Rothbart

Scott Rothbart, Ph.D.

Professor, Department of Epigenetics

Chromatin and Epigenetic Regulation

Hui Shen, Ph.D.

Professor, Department of Epigenetics

Epigenomics Analysis in Human Disease

Xiaobing Shi, Ph.D.

Professor, Department of Epigenetics

Histone Modifications and Chromatin Regulation

Piroska Szabó, Ph.D.

Associate Professor, Department of Epigenetics

Developmental Programming

Tim Triche, Jr., Ph.D.

Associate Professor, Department of Epigenetics

Translational Biological Informatics

Hong Wen, Ph.D.

Professor, Department of Epigenetics

Epigenetics and Transcription

Evan Worden, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor, Department of Structural Biology

Structural Biology of Epigenetic Complexes

Qiang Zhu, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor, Department of Neurodegenerative Science

Genetics, Epigenetics and Therapeutic Innovation in Neurodegenerative Diseases

Recent Publications

Source

*Baylin SB, Jones PA. 2016. Epigenetic determinants of cancer. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5008069