Study examines role of epigenetics in children’s environmental health studies

What role do epigenetics, the study of changes in organisms caused by modification of gene expression, play in driving and explaining environmental health effects on children? Environmental Health Perspectives takes a closer look at one of its recently published articles with insight from USC’s Carrie Breton, assistant professor of preventive medicine.

Breton and her co-authors reviewed the methods, analyses, and complexity of environmental epigenetics research in the context of the developmental origins of health and disease (DOHaD).

The review summarizes research pertaining to detection and interpretation of epigenetic changes as the basis for the DOHaD hypothesis—a major objective of research underway in the federally funded Children’s Environmental Health and Disease Prevention Research Centers, according to EHP. 

To learn more about environmental health research taking place at USC, visit the Southern California Environmental Health Sciences Center »

— By Larissa Puro