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Writer's pictureDr Bruce Long

Small Research Project: Natural information and Epigenetics.

"Today,the notion of genes sending signals to other genes is as central as the notion of a genetic code was forty years ago. (Maynard-Smith 2000, 187–88. Also 2010 see number 42 in bibliography at bottom)

When evolution (or learning) leads to a signaling system, information is created. (Skyrms 2010, 40)

(Source: Introduction to Calcott, B. (2014). The Creation and Reuse of Information in Gene Regulatory Networks. Philosophy of Science, 81 (5), 879–890. https://doi.org/10.1086/677687)

Announcing a new research initiative and small project.

For a long time the central dogma of molecular biology - that information cannot pass from the phenotype to the genotype - held rigid influence over the molecular biosciences. While the central dogma still has a place, the challenge to its scope from the field of epigenetics has now taken hold in the biosciences worldwide. It's well understood that methylation effects in the cytoplasm during certain stages of development can be transmitted (Bird, A. (2002). DNA methylation patterns and epigenetic memory. Genes & Development, 16(1), 6–21. https://doi.org/10.1101/gad.947102 ). Another well known example of epigenetic information transmission is prions, or proteinaceous infectious particles. These are the kind of non-viral and non-bacterial pathogens that cause such diseases as Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease/syndrome. Because the disease agents are fragments of protein, and not genetic information like that which viruses advantage, the transmission of information in the disease is from Protein fragments to cellular DNA (Chakravarty, A. K., & Jarosz, D. F. (2018). More than Just a Phase: Prions at the Crossroads of Epigenetic Inheritance and Evolutionary Change. Journal of Molecular Biology, 430(23), 4607–4618. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmb.2018.07.017 .)

This IIMx research project, initiated and being undertaken by research director Dr Bruce Long, is aimed at identifying the best conception(s) of causation and naturalised information for application to epigenetic information transmission.

If you would like to participate by way of funding (and have IP and publishing/copyright rights at certain funding levels) please contact research.director@iimx.info or visit our Patreon funding page:

Beebee, H., Hitchcock, C., & Menzies, P. (2010). The Oxford Handbook of Causation. Oxford University Press.

Beebee, H., Hitchcock, C., Menzies, P., & Carroll, J. W. (2010). Anti‐Reductionism. Oxford University Press. Retrieved from http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199279739.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199279739-e-0014 Beebee, H., Hitchcock, C., Menzies, P., & Dowe, P. (2010). Causal Process Theories. Oxford University Press. Retrieved from http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199279739.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199279739-e-0011 Beebee, H., Hitchcock, C., Menzies, P., & Glennan, S. (2010). Mechanisms. Oxford University Press. Retrieved from http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199279739.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199279739-e-0016 Beebee, H., Hitchcock, C., Menzies, P., & Godfrey‐Smith, P. (2010). Causal Pluralism. Oxford University Press. Retrieved from http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199279739.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199279739-e-0017 Beebee, H., Hitchcock, C., Menzies, P., & Healey, R. (2010). Causation in Quantum Mechanics. Oxford University Press. Retrieved from http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199279739.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199279739-e-0034 Beebee, H., Hitchcock, C., Menzies, P., & Hitchcock, C. (2010). Causal Modelling. Oxford University Press. Retrieved from http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199279739.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199279739-e-0015 Beebee, H., Hitchcock, C., Menzies, P., & Hitchcock, C. (2010). Causal Modelling. Oxford University Press. Retrieved from http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199279739.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199279739-e-0015 Beebee, H., Hitchcock, C., Menzies, P., & Humphreys, P. (2010). Causation and Reduction. Oxford University Press. Retrieved from http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199279739.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199279739-e-0031 Beebee, H., Hitchcock, C., Menzies, P., & Jackson, F. (2010). Causation and Semantic Content. Oxford University Press. Retrieved from http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199279739.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199279739-e-0029 Beebee, H., Hitchcock, C., Menzies, P., Maslen, C., Horgan, T., & Daly, H. (2010). Mental Causation. Oxford University Press. Retrieved from http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199279739.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199279739-e-0025 Beebee, H., Hitchcock, C., Menzies, P., & Menzies, P. (2010). Platitudes and Counterexamples. Oxford University Press. Retrieved from http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199279739.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199279739-e-0018 Beebee, H., Hitchcock, C., Menzies, P., & Mumford, S. (2010). Causal Powers and Capacities. Oxford University Press. Retrieved from http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199279739.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199279739-e-0013 Beebee, H., Hitchcock, C., Menzies, P., & Paul, L. A. (2010). Counterfactual Theories. Oxford University Press. Retrieved from http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199279739.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199279739-e-0009 Beebee, H., Hitchcock, C., Menzies, P., Price, H., & Weslake, B. (2010). The Time‐Asymmetry of Causation. Oxford University Press. Retrieved from http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199279739.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199279739-e-0021 Beebee, H., Hitchcock, C., Menzies, P., & Sklar, L. (2010). Causation in Statistical Mechanics. Oxford University Press. Retrieved from http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199279739.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199279739-e-0033 Beebee, H., Hitchcock, C., Menzies, P., & Tooley, M. (2010). Causes, Laws, and Ontology. Oxford University Press. Retrieved from http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199279739.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199279739-e-0019 Beebee, H., Hitchcock, C., Menzies, P., & Williamson, J. (2010). Probabilistic Theories. Oxford University Press. Retrieved from http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199279739.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199279739-e-0010 Beebee, H., Hitchcock, C., Menzies, P., & Woodward, J. F. (2010). Agency and Interventionist Theories. Oxford University Press. Retrieved from http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199279739.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199279739-e-0012 Bergstrom, C. T., & Rosvall, M. (2011a). Response to commentaries on “The Transmission Sense of Information.” Biology & Philosophy, 26(2), 195–200.  Bergstrom, C. T., & Rosvall, M. (2011b). The transmission sense of information. Biology & Philosophy, 26(2), 159–176.  Blanco, E., & Corominas, M. (2012). CBS: an open platform that integrates predictive methods and epigenetics information to characterize conserved regulatory features in multiple Drosophila genomes. BMC Genomics, 13(1), 688–688. https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2164-13-688 Calcott, B. (2014). The Creation and Reuse of Information in Gene Regulatory Networks. 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