One of the most exciting developments to come out of the completion of the Human Genome Project in 2003 was the emergence of the new field of epigenomics - the study of epigenetic modification at a level outside the single gene. While epigenetics refers to the study of single genes or groups of genes, epigenomics refers to the wider global analyses of epigenetic changes across the entire genome. The blueprint of our genes may have been defined by the Human Genome Project, but the rules governing them are prescribed by the science of epigenomics. Therefore, the origins of health and susceptibility to disease are, in part, the result of epigenetic regulation of the genetic blueprint.
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