Epigenetics in 1952-53

 
This week's Citation Classics are, indeed, classics [This Week's Citation Classics: Host Induced Variation]. They were the first papers to describe a new form of non-Mendelian inheritance that eventually became well-understood at the molecular level. Today, scientists working on animal development think they have independently discovered this concept. They call it epigenetics.

As John Dennehy says,

Today epigenetics is all the rage, but it has its roots in a pair of papers appeared nearly simultaneously in 1952-1953.

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