As of September 21, 2021, more than 1500 readers have viewed Dr. Park’s manuscript, “Epigenetic biomarkers for environmental exposures and personalized breast cancer prevention,” published in February of 2020 in International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. In this paper, it is proposed that the identification of blood epigenetic markers for personal, in utero, and ancestral environmental exposures can help researchers better understand known and potential relationships between exposures and breast cancer risk and may enable personalized prevention strategies. The full-text article can be found here.
Figure 1. Conceptual model for inherited epigenetic susceptibility to disease. Disease risk in a woman (C) may be affected by not only her own lifestyle and environmental exposures but also by what she was exposed to through her mother in utero (B) and even through both parents’ pre-conception via exposure-mediated epigenetic changes in their germ cells (A). Likewise, the woman’s exposures may affect her future child’s disease risk (D).