Western University’s Ben Laufer (Ph.D. Candidate) discusses how bioinformatic software was used to establish that even moderate exposure to alcohol during pregnancy, equivalent to a few beers every now and then, can produce profound and heritable variations in development, behaviour, and learning that are maintained in the exposed fetus for a lifetime by altered epigenetic marks.

It has long been known that the environment can alter an individual profoundly. Recent research into the growing field of Epigenetics has revealed a molecular bridge between nature and nurture that can not only influence individuals but can also shape populations and even generations. The workflow presented in this webinar is transferable to many other environmental exposures and complex diseases, as it can be used with essentially any gene expression data to reveal high quality regulatory relationships, ultimately offering a novel approach for judging how the environment can shape humanity for a lifetime and beyond.