Bruce Lipton, scientist, researcher, teacher, and author, is driven by a passion to bring scientific evidence directly to the people his information could best assist: everyone.
His journey of discovery began as a cell biologist cloning stem cells to understand their control mechanism. This research was undertaken while teaching cell anatomy to medical school students at the University of Wisconsin. Further research conducted at Stanford’s School of Medicine revealed that genes were turned on and off, not by the genes themselves, but through external, environmental stimuli. These radical findings ran contrary to the long-held assumptions of genetic determinism and became one of the early heralds of an emerging scientific understanding called epigenetics.
Scientific theorems are slow to evolve and these new concepts have not yet been fully integrated into the mainstream of academia, partly due to the fact that the training of health professionals is deeply vested by the pharmaceutical industry and the even greater promise of lucrative gene therapies. Thus, valuable knowledge that reinforces our innate ability to impact gene expression has not found its way into contemporary medical textbooks or clinical practice. To make this evidence accessible to everyone, Dr. Lipton made the difficult decision to leave his financial and professional security and take the road less traveled. He trusted that bringing such knowledge directly to non-scientific audiences could greatly impact people’s lives, just as it had transformed his own. –
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Bruce Lipton- New Biology Belief – Epigenetics: Where Mind And Matter Meet
It’s well established, of course, that environmental effects like radiation, which alter the genetic sequences in a sex cell’s DNA, can leave a mark on subsequent generations. Likewise, it’s known that the environment in a mother’s womb can alter the development of a fetus.
What’s eye-opening is a growing body of evidence suggesting that the epigenetic changes wrought by one’s diet, behavior, or surroundings can work their way into the germ line and echo far into the future.
Put simply, and as bizarre as it may sound, what you eat or smoke today could affect the health and behavior of your great-grandchildren.In recent years, epigenetics researchers have made great strides in understanding the many molecular sequences and patterns that determine which genes can be turned on and off.
Their work has made it increasingly clear that for all the popular attention devoted to genome-sequencing projects, the epigenome is just as critical as DNA to the healthy development of organisms, humans included. Jirtle and Waterland’s experiment was a benchmark demonstration that the epigenome is sensitive to cues from the environment.
More and more, researchers are finding that an extra bit of a vitamin, a brief exposure to a toxin, even an added dose of mothering can tweak the epigenome—and thereby alter the software of our genes—in ways that affect an individual’s body and brain for life.
All of these discoveries are shaking the modern biological and social certainties about genetics and identity. We commonly accept the notion that through our DNA we are destined to have particular body shapes, personalities, and diseases. Some scholars even contend that the genetic code predetermines intelligence and is the root cause of many social ills, including poverty, crime, and violence.
“Gene as fate” has become conventional wisdom. Through the study of epigenetics, that notion at last may be proved outdated. Suddenly, for better or worse, we appear to have a measure of control over our genetic legacy.
“People used to think that once your epigenetic code was laid down in early development, that was it for life,” says Moshe Szyf, a pharmacologist with a bustling lab at McGill University in Montreal. “But life is changing all the time, and the epigenetic code that controls your DNA is turning out to be the mechanism through which we change along with it.
Epigenetics tells us that little things in life can have an effect of great magnitude.”
Epigenetics: Where Consciousness Meets DNA | Brain World
Now, the study of epigenetics is illuminating more of the intricacies of how our genes affect, and are affected by, our life. “Epi” comes from Greek, meaning “upon,” “over,” or “near,” so epigenetics is the study of mechanisms “on …
Epigenetics challenges neo-Darwinism – creation.com
Epigenetics destroys neo-Darwinian notions of junk DNA, pseudogenes and common descent from primitive ancestors.
Epigenetics: How our experiences affect our offspring – The Week
In this new science of “epigenetics,” researchers are exploring how nature and nurture combine to cause behavior, traits, and illnesses that genes alone can’t explain, ranging from sexual orientation to autism to cancer.