General information about the scientific essay:
This scientific essay is for an advanced genetics postgraduate master’s course at university. The topic of the essay is “How great an impact will epigenetics have on our understanding of complex disease susceptibility and treatment?” which should highlight the importance of epigenetic regulation (DNA methylation, Histone modifications, non-coding RNA etc.) in complex diseases such as different types of cancer, cardiovascular disease (atherosclerosis) and type 1/type 2 diabetes etc. The essay should have at least two referenced or created by the author figures with well written figure legends. The figure legends are not part of the word count. A minimum of 25 primary scientific papers should be used for the writing of the essay, the majority of which should be relatively recent papers which show where the field of epigenetics and complex disease is currently. The essay should demonstrate good understanding of the key experimental procedures and techniques that generate the data used in the supporting scientific papers so that the author’s view on the subject is shown to be based on scientific evidence. Hence primary scientific experimental literature should be used.
Essay structure:
The essay structure should follow the: Introduction, Main body, Conclusion structure. Each paragraph within the Main body should be given a separate title.
The introduction should introduce the topic by explaining what epigenetics is and by describing the key types of epigenetic modifications (such as DNA methylation, Histone modifications, non-coding RNA etc.). Also, some basic examples of the involvement of epigenetics in simple diseases such as Prader–Willi and Beckwith–Wiedemann syndromes should be given just to show how epigenetic modifications can have a function in disease ( however the focus of the essay is NOT on these simple epigenetic disorders mentioned here, they should be given just as a brief introductory example). Then to finish of the introduction, the relation between epigenetics and complex disease should be hinted at as a transition for moving onto the Main body paragraphs.
The Main body should contain a few paragraphs each with a separate title and theme, with all of them supporting a key viewpoint and joining together as a whole. Each paragraph should focus on a different complex disease (with cancer, cardiovascular disease (atherosclerosis) and type 1/type 2 diabetes being the main focus of the essay). For example, the first paragraph can focus on the current understanding of the relationship between epigenetics and cancer, and how susceptibility to cancer and cancer treatment can be dependent on future better understanding of epigenetics. In addition, current epigenetic cancer drugs in clinical trials or on the market should be given as an example to support this idea. Then, the second paragraph can focus on the current understanding of the relationship between epigenetics and cardiovascular disease, and how susceptibility to atherosclerosis and atherosclerosis treatment can be dependent on future better understanding of epigenetics. The third paragraph can then follow the same structure but for type1/ type 2 diabetes for example. The author can decide to use these complex disease examples in any order or format that they see fit in order to construct the epigentics-complex disease relationship and treatment prospective viewpoint. This can also depend on what the most recent available and most abundant scientific literature on the topic is currently.
The conclusion part of the essay should be a paragraph which ties in all the viewpoints together and ultimately, based on the available scientific literature, answers the question asked in the title: “How great an impact will epigenetics have on our understanding of complex disease susceptibility and treatment?”.
Final remarks:
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