Why do some foods cause health problems and others make us healthy? How does stress impact our long-term well-being? Why is it that the older we get, the more likely it is that age-related illness will strike us? Unlocking the secrets behind these and other questions has the potential to revolutionize life as we know it. The emerging field of epigenetics is aiming to do just that.

The importance of nature versus nurture has long been disputed. It cannot be denied that environment greatly influences how a child grows and develops, nor can it be denied that our DNA is the blueprint that makes us who we are. Epigenetics merges these two seemingly contradictory lines of thought to explain how environmental factors cause physical modifications to DNA and its associated structures, which result in altered functions.

The most commonly known epigenetic modification is DNA methylation. Although many technologies have been developed in the past to characterize genomic DNA methylation, none of them has been able to efficiently determine DNA methylation patterns on a genomic scale. Until now.