Epigenetics in Medical Practice in the Twenty First Century

Abstract

Epigenetics as a field of study is important because it tends to give answers to pertinent questions like why are identical twins behaving differently despite their possession of the same gene? Epigenetics provides a frame work for solving medical problems like mental retardation, neurodegenerative disorder, schizophrenia and social challenges like suicide and addiction. Abnormal DNA methylation pattern in epigenetics has been linked with a huge number of human cancers. However, recent research has revealed that epigenetic pharmaceuticals like vorinostat, decitabine and azacytidine could be a replacement or aid therapy for presently accepted treatment methods such as radiation and chemotherapy or may argument these current treatments. Understanding epigenetics phenomena entails the use of some research methods which include chromatin immunoprecipitation, fluorescent in-situ hybridization, methylation-sensitive restrictive enzyme and the use of bioinformatics methods. Further research work into epigenetics should be encouraged since this discipline of study has the potential to unravel lots of knowledge that will be very beneficial to managing some medical conditions.