Identically Different: Why You Can Change Your Genes by Professor Tim Spector

Identically Different: Why You Can Change Your Genes is written by Professor Tim Spector. It is presented as a guide to genetics and epigenetics, drawing on the latest genetic research and the author’s own studies.

Synopsis

Since the discovery of DNA, scientists have often treated genes as fixed entities, inherited and passed on unchanged. Professor Tim Spector sets out how recent genetic research, alongside his pioneering work on epigenetics, challenges this view of genes, identity and evolution.

He describes genes as more plastic than previously assumed, able to change shape and evolve, with changes that can be passed to future generations. The book explores the hidden world of our genes and the complex part they play in shaping identity, ranging across topics including sexuality and religion, cancer and autism, politics and pubic hair, as well as clones and bacteria.