Short Course Description
The course will deal with the historical developments, controversies, underlying philosophical and political ideas, and cutting edge mechanistic discoveries in the field of epigenetic inheritance. Epigenetics is defined (in this course) as transmission of non-DNA-encoded information across cell divisions or across generations (the most well studied epigenetic agents are chromatin marks, small RNAs, and prions). While epigenetic inheritance across cell divisions is fairly well understood, transgenerational epigenetics is still controversial, and was only recently established as fact in a limited number of organisms. We will go deep into the mechanisms enabling such inheritance and the barriers that may limit it. We will also consider the different implications of such inheritance, with special emphasis on how it may affect the theory of evolution.
Full syllabus will be available to registered students only
