Edith Heard on unravelling the mystery of X-chromosome inactivation

Imagine looking at a map of a city you thought you knew inside-out, only to discover a collection of tightly knit neighbourhoods that nobody had ever realised existed. Edith Heard has achieved something rather similar with DNA. Edith is a leading expert in epigenetics: put simply, the science around how our bodies can turn particular genes on or off without actually altering our DNA.