A UCLA research team led by Patrick Allard, assistant professor of society and genetics, has been awarded a $1.1 million grant from the John Templeton Foundation as part of the foundation’s funding efforts for research into genetics. The project’s co-leaders are Amander Clark, associate professor of molecular, cell and developmental biology, and Hannah Landecker, director of the UCLA Institute for Society and Genetics, and professor of sociology, who uses the tools of history and social science to study contemporary developments in the life sciences, including epigenetics.
The big questions Allard and his UCLA colleagues will address concerns whether we all have the same chance to live healthy lives and how much power individuals have over their own health. To what extent is our health pre-determined not only by our parents’ health, but going back several generations? “We hope that our findings will help us better understand how environmental exposure information is transferred across generations,” Allard said.