First, some backstory. In the fall of 1977 I took genetics. The textbook spent chapters covering Mendel & mitosis & meiosis. It waxed on about chi squares and Punnett squares and the Hardy-Weinberg Principle. But somewhere toward the final chapter, the book dedicated a couple pages to a thing called “epigenetics.” In contrast to the clockwork of Mendel’s peas, this was a bizarre voodoo phenomenon, almost smacking of Lamarck’s heritability of acquired characteristics.

But 41 years later geneticists now have a better grip on the idea of heritable changes in gene expression. These can result from changes in modification or ‘decoration’ of DNA bases, rather than a change in the sequence of those bases. If genetics focuses on the spelling of DNA and the order of the four bases, then perhaps epigenetics can be thought of as the diacritical marks of our genetic language.

Frank Pugh of Penn State is taking us through his lab’s research in epigenetics and gene regulation.

I’m grateful to John Denu and Ann Denu of the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery in partnering with me to offer Professor Pugh’s public talk as part of Wednesday Nite @ The Lab.