In the article "Research Increases on the Role of Epigenetics in OSA," Medscape reported on the role epigenetics may play in sleep disorders like obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), covering the definition of epigenetics, the search for new OSA biomarkers, and what future research is needed. To define epigenetics, the author interviewed experts such as Emily Cheung, a biomedical engineering doctoral student in Professor Matthew Kay's Lab and an ARCS Foundation Fellow.
Here is an excerpt from the article: "Environmental factors play an integral role in the way genes can be expressed,” Emily Cheung, a PhD candidate in biomedical engineering and researcher in epigenetics and pediatric sleep apnea at The George Washington University in Washington, DC, told Medscape Medical News. “Epigenetics is a mechanism that can regulate gene expression without changes to DNA base pair sequences.”
Read the full article on Medscape.