Liggins researcher wins Marsden grant for a history of epigenetics

Liggins researcher wins Marsden grant for a history of epigenetics

Liggins Institute Research Fellow Dr Tatjana Buklijas has won a prestigious Marsden Fund grant worth $504,500 to write a history of the epigenetic revolution.

The hotly contested Marsden Fund – a government fund administered by the Royal Society of New Zealand – is the country’s leading supporter of research projects driven by individual investigators.

Dr Buklijas says we are living through a revolution in our understanding of heredity due to epigenetics, and her book Of famines and ancestors: a history of the epigenetic revolution will be the first serious history of the field. 

Epigenetics is the study of the molecular mechanisms which allow the environment to modify the expression of genes in the DNA code passed from parents to children, by switching the genes responsible for certain processes on or off. 

“Epigenetics has been hailed as 'the missing link’ between the social and the life sciences with phenomena such as parenting, pollution and stress now seen as leaving marks on our genomes,” says Dr Buklijas.

“Yet for all the excitement and publicity, there is no consensus on the scope, significance or even definition of epigenetics.”

Dr Buklijas says while some argue that the genetic paradigm remains unchallenged, others see epigenetics as the vindication of the once-heretical idea that an organism can pass on to its offspring a characteristic it has acquired during its lifetime. 

“Through the twentieth century, scholars who had challenged the dominant genetic model of heredity were ridiculed, accused of fraud and associated with problematic politics. Yet over the past three or four decades something has changed.

“I want to look at why we appear to need a new model of heredity. Why has the view of ourselves as systems in constant exchange with our dynamic environment – once dominant, but long marginalized – become so prominent?”

Dr Buklijas trained as a physician in her hometown of Zagreb, Croatia, but switched to study the history and philosophy of science at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom.

In 2008, she moved to New Zealand and took up a research fellowship at the Liggins Institute, where she works in the Centre for Human Evolution, Adaptation and Disease.

“While this is a historical, humanities project, in many ways it could not have been done without spending years around scientists in the Liggins,” Dr Buklijas says.

“I am grateful to the Liggins for providing such an inspirational and diverse environment allowing people from different disciplines to develop their thinking.” 

About The Liggins Institute

The Liggins Institute is one of the world’s leading centres for research on fetal and child health, nutrition, development, epigenetics and evolutionary medicine.  Our aim is to rapidly translate discoveries in basic science into therapies and strategies that will prevent or help people manage major health problems in the 21^st century.  We are based in New Zealand at the University of Auckland. www.liggins.auckland.ac.nz