Symposium summary: Epigenetic inheritance—impact for biology and society 26–28 August 2019, Zurich, Switzerland

Abstract

The concept of epigenetic inheritance proposes a new and unconventional way to think about heredity in health and disease, at the interface between genetics and the environment. Epigenetic inheritance is a form of biological inheritance not encoded in the DNA sequence itself but mediated by epigenetic factors. Because epigenetic factors can be modulated by the environment, they can relay this information to the genome and modify its activity consequentially. If epigenetic changes induced by environmental exposure are present in the germline and persist in germ cells during development until conception, they have the potential to transfer the traces of ancestral exposure to the progeny. This form of heredity relates to the extremely important question of nature versus nurture and how much of our own make-up is genetically or epigenetically determined, a question that remains largely unresolved. Because it questions the dominant dogma of genetics and brings a paradigm shift in sciences, it has to creating strong bridges between disciplines and provide solid causal evidence to be firmly established. The second edition of a conference fully dedicated to epigenetic inheritance was held in August 2019 in Zurich, Switzerland. This symposium titled ‘Epigenetic inheritance: impact for biology and society’ (http://www.epigenetic-inheritance-zurich.ethz.ch), gathered experts in the field of epigenetic inheritance to discuss the concept and pertinent findings, exchange views and expertise about models and methods, and address challenges raised by this new discipline. The symposium offered a mix of invited lectures and short talks selected from abstracts, poster sessions and a workshop ‘Meet the experts: Q&A’. A tour of a local omics facility the Functional Genomics Center Zurich was also offered to interested participants. Additional comments and impressions were shared by attendees on Twitter #eisz19 during and after the symposium. This summary provides an overview of the different sessions and talks and describes the main findings presented.