How behaviours and environment alter your genes: epigenetics, the new healthcare frontier

Epigenetics, the study of how our behaviours and environment can cause changes that affect the way your genes work, is a rapidly developing research field that is expected to unravel the complex interplay between genes and environmental exposures relevant for health and disease. Unlike genetic changes, epigenetic changes are reversible and do not change your DNA sequence, but they can change how your body reads a DNA sequence. This session will explore a number of fundamental issues related to our gene inheritance and how do good genes get turned off and bad genes turned on? This session is relevant for those working in public health and health, care and voluntary sectors.