An exciting new way to tackle malignancy

While genetics can be said to be a study of consequences to gene biology of variations that occur within the base-pair sequence of the genes themselves, epigenetics (the prefix is from Ancient Greek “epi,” meaning 'above') is the specialty that examines cellular variations caused by factors that switch genes on and off, transcriptional factors that affect how cells “read” genes.

Cellular operation is affected by the genetic instructions the cell receives. Epigenetic scientists examine how those instructions affect cells. The term also refers to the changes themselves: functionally relevant changes to the genome that do not involve a change in the DNA nucleotide sequence. Epigenetic therapies seek to deliver instructions to unhealthy cells that make them operate in healthier ways.