epigeneticistn.
/ˌɛpᵻdʒᵻˈnɛtᵻsɪst/, U.S. /ˌɛpədʒəˈnɛdəsəst/ Biology.
Originally: a person who advocates or believes in the theory of epigenesis (see epigenesis n. 1) (now historical). In later use also: a person who studies the biological and molecular biological processes involved in development and in the expression of genes; spec. an expert or specialist in epigenetics (see epigenetics n.).With the original use cf. earlier epigenesist n. at epigenesis n. Derivatives, epigenist n.
ΚΠ
1919 Amer. Jrnl. Bot. 6 295 It is doubtless true, as is so strongly felt by the newer epigeneticists like Greil, that the idea of a representation of characters of a many-celled organism, especially those due to the inter-relations of the cells, in the chromosomes cloaks a vast amount of obscurity.
1957 Sci. Amer. Nov. 82/1 Up to the latter part of the 19th century, however, the epigeneticists and the preformationists continued their war of words without direct experimental test, and embryology remained almost entirely a descriptive science.
2001 Proc. National Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 98 393/3 We may well find that the geneticists and the epigeneticists converge on Boveri's definition of cancer as a disease of ‘the chromatin’.
2014 Observer 7 Sept. (New Review section) 18/1 Now, epigeneticists are asking whether in fact our environment, from smoking and diet to pollution and war, can leave ‘epigenetic marks’ on our DNA that could get passed on to subsequent generations.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, December 2021).
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n.1919