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This Timeline article reviews the evolution of both prenatal and pre-implantation genetic testing, from their historic origins to ongoing development and implementation of tools for genome-wide single-cell and cell-free fetal DNA analysis. Future developments and some of the ethical issues that arise from these new technologies are also discussed.
Over the past few decades, epigenetics has evolved from a collection of curious biological phenomena to a functionally dissected research field. In this article, the authors provide a personal perspective on the advances of research into epigenetics — from its historical origins to its modern era — with a focus on molecular breakthroughs.
