Michael Kobor, associate professor in the Department of Medical Genetics at the University of British Columbia, studies epigenetics. To help explain his field of study, he invites you to think of each of your 25,000 genes as a light bulb. The intensity of the light represents the level of activity of each gene. Like genes, each of these 25,000 light bulbs can be fully on or fully off, but epigenetics is like the dimmer switch that allows them to shine at any intensity in between; Kobor looks at both the light intensity and the position of the dimmer switch.
Unlike the sequence of your genes, which are inherited from your parents, your epigenetics are subject to change throughout your life based on your experiences. However, some of these changes can be long-lasting.
Epigenetics can be tracked through small chemical groups called methyl groups that attach to DNA to regulate gene activity, giving a marker that researchers can seek out to look for patterns, says Kobor.
Kobor is especially interested in the impact of early childhood poverty, and has uncovered several recognizable epigenetic patterns that predict whether a person had high or low socioeconomic status growing up.
It turns out that the patterns observed in people raised in poverty are not random – they are similar to patterns seen in heightened immune responses. While this may seem like a positive when it comes to resilience to infections, an overactive immune system is associated with a variety of medical conditions, from coronary heart disease to poor mental health. Kobor hopes that evidence of these concrete epigenetic changes might help change policies to give every child a healthy start in life.
