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It’s unlikely that there was a conventional thinker in the hotel ballroom when the first annual Epigenetic Medicine Award was presented in Los Angeles on Thursday night[1]. Leading edge scientists, psychologists and other health professionals gathered as a pioneering researcher, as well as a new branch of science, were honored in a groundbreaking event. While the current medical/science model is entrenched in Newtonian physics, and is based on matter, to the exclusion of invisible forces, Epigenetics has emerged as a quantum science. According to Soul Medicine Institute (SMI), “Epigenetics is the new science describing influences that alter the expression of genes.” Epi- means above; so epigenetic means control of DNA from above or outside the gene. SMI notes that, “New research shows that consciousness (beliefs, feelings, prayer, energy, thought) may have epigenetic effects.”
Dawson Church, Ph.D. notes that, “the picture ingrained in the public mind (is) that genes determine everything from our physical characteristics to our behavior. Even many scientists still speak from the assumption that our genes form an immutable blueprint that our cells must forever follow.[2]” However, the new science of epigenetics tells us that “genes are merely blueprints, and it is the environment … that determines genetic expression,[3]” according to cellular biologist Bruce Lipton, Ph.D.
One of the keynote speakers at the awards event, Lipton’s topic, The Biological Musings of a Free Radical, was peppered with humor, as he passionately shared a complex subject with the eager audience. Lipton’s pioneering stem cell research began in the late 60s. His research at Stanford University’s School of Medicine, between 1987 and 1992, revealed that the environment, operating through the membrane (of the cell), controlled the behavior and physiology of the cell, turning genes on and off. Lipton’s discoveries, which ran counter to the established scientific view that life is controlled by the genes, presaged the new science of Epigenetics.
The historic, first Epigenetic Medicine Award went to Randy Jirtle, Ph.D., director of the Laboratory of Epigenetics and Imprinting at Duke University. Dr. Jirtle is a professor of radiation oncology at the school's medical center. His witty presentation cited his groundbreaking research with agouti mice, which proved that a mother's diet during pregnancy can influence gene expression in her offspring by altering the epigenome.
In the photo, the two agouti mice are genetically identical. However, the blond mouse is obese and predisposed to diabetes and cancer. The brown mouse is the healthy result of a change in the mother’s diet. The groundbreaking findings showed that a diet that has been nutritionally enhanced can result in changes in genetic expression of offspring, as explained in a 2006 Discover magazine article about Jirtle’s research, which was aptly titled, DNA is Not Destiny: The New Science of Epigenetics Rewrites the Rules of Disease, Heredity and Identity.[4]
Jirtle gratefully accepted the award for himself and the Duke University lab, and also expressed his appreciation for the recognition of the fledgling science of Epigenetics.
www.merylannbutler.com Meryl Ann Butler is an artist, author and educator who counts First Lady Dolley Payne Todd Madison as well as two signers of the Articles of Confederation among her ancestors. Mary Ball, mother of George Washington is in the ancestral lineage of Butler's great grandmother, Blanche Ball. Grateful to know that the blood of America's founding mothers and fathers runs in her veins, Butler has been newly filled with matriotism as a direct result of the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections. Lest she appear too uppity, it should be revealed that she also has family ties to James Butler Hickok, better known as Wild Bill. Butler has been actively engaged in utilizing the arts as stepping-stones toward joy-filled enlightenment for the past two decades. A native of NYC, her response to 9-11 was to pen an invitation to healing through creativity, entitled, "90-Minute Quilts: 15+ Projects You Can Stitch in an Afternoon" (Krause 2006). They don't call quilts "comforters" for nothing! www.90minutequilts.com Butler was faculty advisor for "The Love for All Mankind/Anti-Apartheid Quilt" project at ENMU (1993), now in the collection of the Hon. Nelson Mandela. As Arts Advisor for the Center for Improving U.S.- Soviet Relations (CIUSSR) Baltimore, MD; her activities included the "First U.S.-Soviet Childrens' Peace Quilt Exchange" (1987-88), an historic project chronicled in the media of both countries. Citizen diplomacy trips to the U.S.S.R. in 1987 and 1988 included lectures and presentations to fashion designers, craftspeople and artists in Odessa, Moscow, Kiev and St.Petersburg, in which she focused on the topic of creating global peace through international art exchanges. Butler is the proud mother of a daughter and seven stepchildren (all grown), and a passel o' grand younguns. It is to these new generations that she dedicates her political activism. Archived articles www.opednews.com/author/author1820.html Older archived articles, from before May 2005 are here.,
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