Situating Environmental Epigenetics. A Comparative, Actor-Centered Study of Environmental Epigenetics as an Emergent Research Approach in Three Research Fields.
Final Report Abstract
Epigenetics explores changes in gene expression that do not result from gene mutation, but from chemical modifications on the DNA. Such epigenetic modifications have been found to respond to numerous stimuli from the environment – such as toxicants, nutrition, or stress – giving rise to ‘environmental epigenetics’. By proposing mechanisms for how such factors can alter gene expression, environmental epigenetics offers important novel perspectives for understanding health and illness in the life sciences and in society. In the social sciences, environmental epigenetics has been received with enthusiasm and skepticism. Some have welcomed it as a new kind of biology that acknowledges the role of social context for biology. Others have doubted that it constitutes a break with bio-centric perspectives and have argued that it introduces a novel locus of biological determination: the epigenetic mark. Hence, assessments of the epistemic, social and political potentials of environmental epigenetics diverge. In this project, we proposed that this dissonance is due in part to the fact that the turn to environmental epigenetics is often discussed as if it constituted one uniform epistemic transformation. Much of the literature discusses environmental epigenetics across research fields without detailed attention to its specific instantiations in different fields. We proposed to take a different approach: to compare how environmental epigenetics is adopted and adapted by researchers in different fields and to explore the situated epistemic, social and political characteristics it acquires. Focusing on three research fields (nutritional epidemiology; environmental toxicology; the pathophysiology of mood & anxiety), we found that while for all three fields epigenetics presented an answer to long-held questions, it created different epistemic and social dynamics. In toxicology, it makes possible to capture more subtle effects of toxicants, but it is unclear how this knowledge can be translated into policy recommendations. In the pathophysiology of mood & anxiety, clinical researchers are ready to take up epigenetics as a biomarker for how life experiences affect mental health, but molecular biologists are skeptical if these biomarkers are really meaningful. In nutritional epidemiology, researchers have come to highly rely on epigenetics as a proof of long-held beliefs regarding the importance of nutrition in early life for long-term health, but only few studies actually give mechanistic proof. Our study confirms that to understand the epistemic, social and political meaning of epigenetics, it is necessary to study its concrete use in specific research contexts with different epistemic traditions and ties to science and policy.
Publications
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DOHaD in science and society: emergent opportunities and novel responsibilities. Journal of Developmental Origins of Health and Disease, 10(3), 268-273.
Penkler, M.; Hanson, M.; Biesma, R. & Müller, R.
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Back to normal? Building community resilience after COVID-19. The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology, 8(8), 664-665.
Penkler, Michael; Müller, Ruth; Kenney, Martha & Hanson, Mark
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Caring for biosocial complexity. Articulations of the environment in research on the Developmental Origins of Health and Disease. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 93, 1-10.
Penkler, Michael
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Doing Environments in DOHaD and Epigenetics. The Handbook of DOHaD and Society, 249-257. Cambridge University Press.
Rossmann, Sophia & Samaras, Georgia
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The evolution of ACEs: From coping behaviors to epigenetics as explanatory frameworks for the biology of adverse childhood experiences. History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences, 46(4).
Müller, Ruth & Kenney, Martha
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The Handbook of DOHaD and Society. Cambridge University Press.
Pentecost, M.; Keaney, J.; Mol, T. & Penkler, M.
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Toxicity as process: tracing a new epigenetic regime of im/perceptibility in environmental toxicology. Science as Culture, 34(3), 275-303.
Rossmann, Sophia & Müller, Ruth
