Maria Aristizabal, Sara Mostafavi and Michael Kobor, along with affiliate members Thom McDade and Candice Odgers have published a review article entitled "Biological embedding of experience: A primer on epigenetics" in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The article describes the various ways by which life experiences can produce lasting changes in the function of a biological system, leading to effects on physical and mental development, a process known as "biological embedding". In particular, the article focuses on the role of epigenetics-the numerous chemical and physical alterations of both deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and its chromatin packaging. It is important to note that these alterations do not modify the underlying DNA sequence, in other words, they do not cause mutations. Instead, it is these epigenetic modifications that functionally regulate gene expression, as well as the overall activity, of the genome through time and space, giving rise to a richly diverse phenotypic landscape from a single genetic palette.
Read it here: https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2019/10/16/1820838116