The Many Daughters of Afong Moy

by Jamie Ford

Epigenetics Brian Dias and Kerry Ressler for their groundbreaking work at Emory University that showed how mice inherit fear from their parents, to which Marcus Pembry, emeritus professor of pediatric genetics at University College London, said, “It is high time public health researchers took human transgenerational responses seriously.” Laura Hercher, the director of research, Human Genetics at Sarah Lawrence College, put it more succinctly, calling it, “Crazy Lamarckian shit.” (Lamarckism is a theory explored in the 1800s that suggests that organisms pass on to their offspring physical characteristics that the parent organism acquired during its lifetime.) Dora L. Costa, Noelle Yetter, and Heather DeSomer, whose work on intergenerational transmission added more evidence suggesting that our parents’ and grandparents’ experiences affect our DNA. Their studies explored how trauma among US Civil War prisoners was passed down to their children and how a father’s stress, nutrition, and mental health can affect his son’s lifespan. (Thanks, Dad.) Rachel Yehuda, who led a research team at New York’s Mount Sinai Hospital regarding genetic changes stemming from the traumas suffered by Holocaust survivors and how one person’s life experiences can affect subsequent generations. Yehuda also did research that showed how pregnant 9/11 survivors transmitted trauma to their children. Adding fuel to this fire is the pioneering work of neuroscientists Steve Ramirez (The Ramirez Group) and t...