Research overview
The possibility that our environment can influence phenotypes in our descendants has tremendous implications for basic biology and for public health and policy. Indeed, there is mounting evidence from worms to mammals, including humans, that parental environment can influence phenotypes in future generations. However, the mechanism of such intergenerational inheritance—sometimes referred to as inheritance of acquired traits, or Lamarckian Inheritance—remains elusive. The inheritance of acquired traits was previously discredited, as there was no known mechanism for the environment to alter the genetic material (DNA) transmitted from parents to offspring. With advances in the field of epigenetics, inheritance that is not based on DNA sequence, there is a resurgent interest in intergenerational inheritance. As epigenetic marks can be modulated by environmental conditions, intergenerational inheritance is potentially mediated via alterations to the gamete “epigenome”. We are interested in studying how our environmental conditions modulate specific epigenetic marks in germ cells and how those marks influence the development of offspring. We are using a unique combination of genomic, molecular, cellular, and reproductive approaches to address this question.
Latest news
Latest study from the lab, titled “Epididymis-specific RNase A family genes regulate fertility and small RNA processing”, led by Josh and Alka is now available on BioRxiv.
Latest study from the lab, titled “A sperm-enriched 5’fragment of tRNA-Valine regulates preimplantation embryonic transcriptome and development”, led by May is now available on BioRxiv.
Upasna discusses her work on paternal inheritance and her scientific journey on Active Motif podcast.
Follow our research
Please follow this link to find the lab’s publications in the National Library of Medicine’s PubMed database.
Join the lab!
We are looking for enthusiastic and talented graduate students, postdocs, and research associates to join our team. Please send your CV and contact information of three references as a single pdf file to upsharma@ucsc.edu.