Blog16th April 2025
Beyond epigenetics to bioethics: Takeaways from my secondment at the Nuffield Council on Bioethics
Amy Wilkinson
I have been fascinated by epigenetics and developmental biology for many years now, but predominantly from a scientific perspective. How is gene expression orchestrated to direct cell differentiation and the generation of an entirely new organism from a single cell? How does it all work? That’s why I came to do my PhD at the Babraham Institute investigating how genes are regulated during early human embryo development. My secondment at the Nuffield Council on Bioethics (NCOB) has allowed me to think beyond this narrower focus and gain a greater appreciation of the wider implications of understanding these sorts of questions.
Epigenetics refers to how and when information in DNA is accessed and used. Almost every cell in the body contains the same DNA instructions encoding genes. But different cell types need to express different genes to carry out their specialised functions. The field of epigenetics has been on the NCOB’s radar for some time. More recently, epigenetics has come up again during the NCOB’s horizon scanning activities in the context of scientific developments in developmental and reproductive biology. So, I was delighted to have the opportunity to work on an NCOB scoping project on epigenetics in human reproduction – my bread and butter! The aim was to explore the current state of the science, where the research might be heading, and most importantly, what ethical and policy considerations might be raised.
I initially thought that there wouldn’t be all that much to explore. In my scientist’s brain, epigenetics was just the myriad of chemical tags that cells can use to regulate gene expression, and a phenomenon that we certainly have more questions than answers about, especially when it comes to human reproduction. But the more I dug into the topic, the more I realised that, while epigenetics is definitely very complex and there is still so much that we don’t know, when you step back from the molecular mechanisms and see the bigger context, there are actually a lot of interesting ethical implications that appear that could have direct policy impact.
A significant part of this project was to talk to a range of experts and convene a cross-disciplinary workshop, bringing together scientists, policy experts, ethicists, and other key stakeholders. We discussed the implications of the reproductive environment – both in natural conception and during assisted reproduction – on the epigenome and health, and the potential future applications of epigenetic technologies, including screening and epigenetic editing. This was a completely new experience for me and my first time facilitating a roundtable discussion. I am very grateful to all the participants for being so open and generous with their insights and perspectives on the topic.
One thing that I really took away from the workshop was how intertwined science and society really are. Scientific concepts and ideas can be taken up, interpreted, and embedded in society, not only through healthcare and policy, but also through the media and social media. Often this is translated in ways that raise unexpected ethical issues. In turn, scientific research is overlaid with the backdrop of society which can affect the types of and ways in which research is done, which too has its own ethical and policy considerations.
Another thing that stuck with me from the workshop, and more broadly my time at the NCOB, was the importance of considering the potential ethical and policy implications of scientific developments in an anticipatory way and horizon scanning approaches. The pace of scientific developments so often outstrips that of regulation and legislation and acting too early could be just as bad as acting too late. So, it is important to look ahead and see what might be coming down the line and consider what the possible implications might be, so that appropriate and pragmatic policy changes can be made, embedding ethics at their core.
I have thoroughly enjoyed my time at the NCOB and have had so many opportunities to learn new skills and fully immerse myself in the world of bioethics. I have gained such an appreciation of the rigorous work that the NCOB does and the impact they have in such a wide range of sectors. I now feel much more confident in being able to consider and talk about ethical implications and am encouraged to take up more opportunities to engage with ethics and policy in my career going forwards.