Epigenetics in Health and Disease

This is the first comprehensive, authoritative, and easy-to-understand introduction to modern epigenetics. Authored by two active researchers in the field, it introduces key concepts one step at a time, enabling students at all levels to benefit from it. The authors begin by presenting a historical overview that places epigenetics in context, and makes it clear that the field is not (as some presume) completely new. Next, they introduce and explain key epigenetic mechanisms, and discuss the roles these mechanisms may play in inheritance, organism development, health and disease, behavior, evolution, ecology, and the interaction of individual organisms with their environments. Coverage includes: non-coding RNAs in each kingdom; allelic interactions; CRYSPR; gene silencing; epigenetics of germline and epigenetic memory; epigenetic regulation of genome stability and plant stress response; and much more. The authors conclude by offering significant new insights into how knowledge of epigenetics and epigenomics may promote the development of technologies and solutions in areas ranging from behavioral neuroscience to cancer treatment, toxicology to the development of hardier crops.

Igor Kovalchuk, Ph.D., MD, Professor and Board of Governors Research Chair at the Department of Biological Sciences, University of Lethbridge (Alberta, Canada), edits Frontiers in Plant Microbe Interaction, Frontiers in Epigenomics, and other publications. As principal investigator in the university's Plant Biotechnology laboratory, he studies genetic and epigenetic regulation of plant response to stress, including the transgenerational effects of stress and microevolution of plant stress tolerance/resistance. Olga Kovalchuk, Ph.D., MD, Professor and Board of Governors Research Chair and Cihrigh Chair in Gender and Health at the University of Lethbridge, researches the role of epigenetic dysregulation in carcinogenesis; epigenetic regulation of cancer treatment responses; radiation epigenetics and role of epigenetic changes in genome stability and carcinogenesis; radiation-induced oncogenic signaling; and radiation-induced DNA damage, repair, and recombination.